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A TREATISE 



ON THE CONDUCT OF THE 



UNDERSTANDING. 



BY JOHN LOCKE, GENT. 



TO WHICH IS NOW ADDED 



A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. 



3 :tfcto lEMtfon. 



BOSTON : 

PUBLISHED AT THE 

WATER STREET BOOKSTORH 
1833. 



6 



12.70 



Dr. H-N. Fowter 



LIFE OF LOCKE. 



. John Locke, one of the greatest philosophers and most 
valuable writers who have adorned this countrv, was born 
at Wrington, in Somersetshire, on the twenty-ninth of Au- 
gust, 1032. His father, who had been bred to the law, 
acted i)i the capacity of steward, or court-keeper, to colonel 
Alexander Popham 5 and, upon the breaking out of the civil 
war, became a captain in the service of the parliament. 
He was a gentleman of strict probity and economy, and 
possessed of a handsome fortune 3 but, as it came much 
impaired into the hands of his son, it was probably injured 
through the misfortunes of the times. However, he took 
great pains in his son's education, and though while he was 
a child he behaved towards him with great distance and 
severity, yet as he grew up, he treated him with more 
familiarity, till at length they lived together rather as friends, 
than as two persons, one of whom might justly claim respect 
from the other. When he was of a proper age, young 
Locke was sent to Westminster school, where he continued 
till the year 1651 ; when he was entered a student of 
Christ church-college, in the university of Oxford. Here 
he so greatly distinguished himself by his application and 
proficiency, that he was considered to be the most inge- 
nious young man in the college. But, though he gained such 
reputation in the university, he was afterwards often heard 
to complain of the little satisfaction which he had found 
in the method of study which had been prescribed to him, 
and of the little service which it had afforded him, in en- 
lightening and enlarging his mind, or in making him more 
exact in his reasonings. The first books which gave him 
a relish for the study of philosophy, were the writings of 
Des Cartes 5 for though he did not approve of all his notions, 
yet he found that he wrote with great perspicuity. Having 
taken his degree of B. A. in 1655, and that of M. A. in 
1658, Mr. Locke for some time closely applied himself to 
the study of physic, going through the usual courses prepar- 
atory to the practice j and it is said that he got some busi- 



IV LIFE OF LOCKE, 

ness in that profession at Oxford. So great was the deli- 
cacy of his constitution, however, that he was not capable 
of a laborious application to the medical art ; and it is not 
improbable that his principal motive in studying it was, that 
he might be qualified, when necessary, to act as his own 
physician. In the year 1664, he accepted of an offer to go 
abroad, in the capacity of secretary to sir William Swan, 
who was appointed envoy from king Charles II. to the 
elector of Brandenburg, and some other German princes 5 
but retuming to England again within less than a year, he 
resumed his studies at Oxford with renewed vigour, and 
applied himself particularly to natural philosophy. While 
he was at Oxford in 1666, an accident introduced him to 
the acquaintance of lord Ashley, afterwards earl of Shaftes- 
bury, which resulted in his inviting Mr. Locke to his house ; 
and, in the year 1667, he prevailed on him to take up his 
residence with him atLunning-hill. 

By his acquaintance with this nobleman, Mr. Locke was 
introduced to the conversation of the duke of Buckingham, 
the earl of Halifax, and other of the most eminent persons 
of that age, who were all charmed with his conversation. 
In the year 1668, at the request of the earl and countess of 
Northumberland, Mr. Locke accompanied them in a tour to 
France, and staid in that country with the countess, while the 
earl went towards Italy, with an intention of visiting Rome. 
But this nobleman dying on his journey at Turin, the countess 
came back to England sooner than was at first designed, and 
Mr. Locke with her, who continued to reside, as before, at 
lord Ashley's. That nobleman, who was then chancellor of 
the exchequer, having, in conjunction with other lords, ob- 
tained a grant of Carolina, employed Mr. Locke to draw up 
the fundamental constitutions of that province. In exe- 
cuting this task, our author had formed articles relative to 
religion, and public worship, on those liberal and enlarged 
principles of toleration, which were agreeable to the senti- 
ments of his enlightened mind 5 but some of the clergy, 
jealous of such provisions as might prove an obstacle to 
their ascendency, expressed their disapprobation of them, 
and procured an additional article to be inserted, securing 
the countenance and support of the state only to the exer- 
cise of religion according to the discipline of the established 
church. Mr. Locke still retained his student's place at 
Christ-church, and made frequent visits to Oxford, for the 



LIFE OF LOCKE. V 

v a^e of consulting books in ibe prosecution of his studies, 
and for the beneht of change of air. At lord Ashley's, he 
inspected the education of his lordship's only son, who was 
then about sixteen years of age 5 and executed that prov- 
ince with the greatest care, and to the entire satisfaction of 
his noble patron. As the young lord was but of a weakly 
constitution, his father thought proper to marry him early, 
lest the family should become extinct by his death. And, 
since he was too young, and had too little experience to 
choose a wife for himself, and lord Ashley had the highest 
opinion of Mr. Locke's judgment, as well as the greatest 
confidence in his integrity, he desired him to make a suita- 
ble choice for his son. This was a difficult and delicate 
task ; for though lord Ashley did not insist on a great for- 
tune for his son, yet he would have him marry a lady of 
a good family, an agreeable temper, a fine person, and, 
above all, of good education and good understanding, 
whose conduct would be very different from that of the gen- 
erality of court ladies. Notwithstanding the difficulties at- 
tending such a commission, Mr. Locke undertook it, and 
executed it very happily. The eldest son by this marriage, 
afterwards the noble author of the Characteristics, was 
committed to the care of Mr. Locke in his education, and 
gave evidence to the world of the master-hand which had 
directed and guided his genius. 

In 1670, an din the following year, Mr. Locke began to form 
the plan of his Essay on the Human Understanding, at the 
earnest request of some of his friends, who were accustomed 
to meet in his chamber, for the purpose of conversing on 
philosophical subjects ; but the employments and avocations 
which were found for him by his patron would not then suf- 
fer him to make any great progress in that work. About 
this time, it is supposed, he was made fellow of the Royal 
Society. In 1672, lord Ashley, having been created earl 
of Shaftesbury, and raised to the dignity of lord high chan- 
cellor of England, appointed Mr. Locke secretary of the 
presentations ; but he held that place only till the end of 
the following year, when the earl was obliged to resign the 
great seal. "His dismissal was followed by that of Mr. 
Locke, to whom the earl had communicated his most secret 
affairs t and who contributed towards the publication of 
some treatises, which were intended to excite the nation to 
watch the conduct of the Roman Catholics, and to oppose 



VI LIFE OF LOCKE, 

the arbitrary designs of the court. After this, his lordship, 
who was still president of the board of trade, appointed Mr. 
Locke secretary to the same, which office he retained not 
long 1 , the commission being- dissolved in the year 1674. In 
the following year, he was admitted to the degree of bache- 
lor of physic ; and it appears that he continued to prosecute 
this study, and to keep up his acquaintance with several of 
the faculty. In what reputation he was held by some of 
the most eminent of them, we may judge from the testimo- 
nial that was given of him by the celebrated Dr. Sydenham, 
in his book, entitled, Observationes Medicse circa Morbo- 
rum Acutorum Historiam et Curationem, &c. " You know, 
likewise," says he, "how much my method has been 
approved of by a person who has examined it to the bottom, 
and who is our common friend : I mean Mr. John Locke, 
who, if we consider his genius and penetrating and exact 
judgment, or the strictness of his morals, has scarcely any 
superior, and few equals now living." In the summer of 
1675, Mr. Locke, being apprehensive of a consumption, 
travelled into France, and resided for some time at Mont- 
pellier, where he became acquainted with Mr. Thomas 
Herbert, afterwards earl of Pembroke, to whom he com- 
municated his design of writing his Essay on Human 
Understanding, From Montpellier he went to Paris, where 
he contracted a friendship with M. Justel, the celebrated 
civilian, whose bouse was at that time the place of resorfc 
for men of letters 5 and where a familiarity commenced 
between him and several other persons of eminent learning. 
In 1679, the earl of Shaftesbury, being again restored to 
favour at court, and made president of the council, sent to 
request that Mr. Locke wouJd return to England, which he 
accordingly did. Within six months, however, that noble- 
man was again displaced, for refusing his concurrence with 
the designs of the court, which aimed at the establishment 
of popery and arbitrary power 5 and, in 1682, he was 
obhged to retire to Holland, to avoid a prosecution for 
high treason, on account of pretended crimes of which he 
was accused. Mr. Locke remained steadily attached to 
his patron, following him into Holland 3 and upon his lord- 
ship's death, which happened soon afterwards, he did not 
think it safe to return to England, where his intima'e con- 
nexion with lord Shaftesbury had created him some 
powerful and malignant enemies. Before he had been a 



LIFE OF LOCKE. m Vll 

year in Holland, he was accused at the English court of 
being the author of certain tracts which had been published 
against the government 3 and, notwithstanding that another 
person was soon afterwards discovered to be the writer of 
them, yet as he was observed to join in company at the 
Hague with several Englishmen who were the avowed 
enemies of the system of politics on which the English 
court now acted, information of this circumstance was con- 
veyed to the earl of Sunderland, then secretary of state. 
This intelligence lord Sunderland communicated to the 
king, who immediately ordered that bishop Fell, then dean 
of Christ-church, should receive his express command to 
eject Mr. Locke from his student's place, which the bishop 
executed accordingly. After this violent procedure of the 
court against him in England, he thought it prudent to 
remain in Holland, where he was at the accession of king 
James II. Soon after that event, William Penn, the famous 
quaker, who had known Mr. Locke at the university, used 
his interest with the king to procure a pardon for him 5 and 
♦voulcl have obtained it had not Mr. Locke declined the 
acceptance of such an offer, nobly observing, that he had 
no occasion for a pardon, since he had not been guilty of 
any crime. 

Li the year 1685, w'ior *r-e duke of Monmouth and his 
party were making preparations in Holland for his rash 
and unfortunate enterprise, the English envoy at the Hague 
demanded that Mr. Locke, with several others, should be 
delivered up to him, on suspicion of his being engaged in 
that undertaking. And though this suspicion was not only 
groundless, but without even a shadow of probability, it 
obliged him to lie concealed nearly twelve months, till it 
was sufficiently known that he had no concern whatever in 
that business, Towards the latter find of the year 1686, 
he appeared again in p.iMic; and in the following year 
formed a literary soriet v a< Amsterdam, of which Limborch, 
Le Clerc, and other learned men, were members, who met 
together weekly for conversation upon subjects of universal 
learning. About the end of the year 1687, our author 
finished the composition of his great work, the Essay con- 
cerning Human Lnderstanding, which had been the principal 
object of his attention for some years 5 and that the public 
might be apprised of the outlines of his plan, he made an 
abridgment of it himself, which his friend Le Clerc trans- 



VlU LIFE or LOCKE. 

lated into French, and inserted in one of his "Biblio* 
theques." This abridgment was so highly approved of by 
all thinking persons, and sincere lovers of truth, that they 
expressed the strongest desire to see the whole work> 
During the time of his concealment, he wrote his first 
Letter concerning Toleration, in Latin, which was first 
printed at Gouda, in 1689, under the title of Epistola de 
JTolerantia, &c. V2mo. This excellent performance, which 
has ever since been held in the highest esteem by the best 
judges, was translated into Dutch and French, in the same 
year, and was also printed in English, in 4to. Before this 
work made its appearance, the happy Revolution in 1688, 
effected by the courage and good conduct of the prince of 
Orange, opened the way for Mr. Locke's return to his 
native country ; whither he came in the fleet which con- 
veyed the princess of Orange. After public liberty had 
been restored, our author thought it proper to assert his 
own private rights ; and therefore put in his claim to the 
student's place in Christ-church, of which he had been 
unjustly deprived. Finding, however, that the society 
resisted his pretensions, on the plea that their proceedings 
had been conformable to their statutes, and that they could 
not be prevailed upon to dispossess the person who had 
been elected in his room, he desisted from his claim. It is 
true, that they made him an offer of being admitted a 
supernumerary student 5 but, as his sole motive in endeav- 
ouring to procure his restoration was, that such a measure 
might proclaim the injustice of the mandate for his ejection, 
he did not think proper to accept it. As Mr. Locke was 
justly considered to be a sufferer for the principles of the 
Revolution, he might without much difficulty have obtained 
some very considerable post; but he contented himself 
with that of commissioner of appeals, worth about £200 
per annum. In July, 1689, he wrote a letter to his friend 
Limborch, with whom he frequently corresponded, in which 
he took occasion to speak of the act of toleration, which 
had then just passed, and at which he expressed his satis- 
faction 5 though he at the same time intimated, that he 
considered it to be defective, and not sufficiently compre- 
hensive. " I doubt not/ 7 says he, "but you have already 
heard, that toleration is at length established among us by 
law j not, however, perhaps, with that latitude which you, 
and such as you, true Christians, devoid of envy and ambi- 



LIFE OF LOCKE. IX 

tion, would have wished. But it is somewhat to have 
proceeded thus far. And I hope these beginnings are the 
foundations of liberty and peace, which shall hereafter be 
established in the church of Christ." 

About this time, Mr. Locke had an offer to go abroad in 
a public character 3 and it was left to his choice whether 
he would be envoy at the court of the emperor, the elector 
of Brandenburg, or any other, where he thought that the 
air would best agree with him ; but he declined it on 
account of the infirm state of his health. In the year 1690, 
he published his celebrated Essay concerning Human Un- 
derstanding, in folio; a work which has made the author's 
name immortal, and does honour to our country 3 which an 
eminent and learned writer has styled, " one of the noblest, 
the usefulest, the most original books the world ever saw.' 7 
But, notwithstanding its extraordinary merit, it gave great 
offence to many people at the first publication, and was 
attacked by various writers, most of whose names are now 
forgotten. It was even proposed, at a meeting of the 
heads of houses of the university of Oxford, to censure and 
discourage the reading of it 3 and, after various debates 
among themselves, it was concluded, that each head of a 
house should endeavour to prevent it from being- read in 
his college. They were afraid of the light which it poured 
in upon the minds of men. But all their efforts were in 
vain 3 as were also the attacks of its various opponents on 
the reputation either of the work or its author, which con- 
tinued daily to increase in every part of Europe. It was 
translated into French and Latin 3 and the fourth in English, 
with alterations and additions, was printed in the year 
1700 3 since which time it has past through a vast number of 
editions. In the year 1690, Mr. Locke published his Two 
Treatises on Government, 8vo. — Those valuable treatises, 
which are some of the best extant on the subject, in any 
language, are employed in refuting and overturning sir 
Robert Filmeris false principles, and in pointing out the 
true origin, extent, and end of civil government. About 
this time, the coin of the kingdom was in a very bad state, 
owing to its having been so much clipped, that it wanted 
above a third of the standard weight. The magnitude of 
this evil, and the mischiefs which it threatened, having 
engaged the serious consideration of parliament, Mr. Locke. 
with the view of assisting those who were at the head of 



X LIFE OF LOCKE. 

affairs to form a right understanding of this matter, and to 
excite them to rectify such shameiul abuse, printed Some 
Considerations of the Consequences of lowering the Interest, 
and raising the Value of Money, 1691, 8vo. Afterwards 
he published some other small pieces on the same subject ; 
by which he convinced the world, that he was as able to rea- 
son on trade and business, as on the most abstract parts of 
science. These writings occasioned his being frequently 
consulted by the ministry, relative to the new coinage of 
silver, and other topics. With the earl of Pembroke, then 
lord keeper of the privy seal, he was for some time accus- 
tomed to hold weekly conferences j and when the air of 
London began to affect his lungs, he sometimes went to the 
earl of Peterborough's seat, near Fulham, where he always 
met with the most friendly reception. He was afterwards, 
however, obliged to quit London entirely, at least during 
the winter season, and to remove to some place at a greater 
distance. He had frequently paid visits to sir Francis 
Masham, at Oates, in Essex, about twenty miles from 
London, where he found that the air agreed admirably well 
with his constitution, and where he also enjoj^ed the most 
delightful society. We may imagine, therefore, that he 
was persuaded, without much difficulty, to accept of an 
offer which sir Francis made, to give him apartments in his 
house, where he might settle during the remainder of his 
life. Here he was received upon his own terms, that he 
might have his entire liberty, and look upon himself as at 
his own house j and here he chiefly pursued his future 
studies, being seldom absent, because the air of London 
grew more and more troublesome to him. 

In 1693, Mr. Locke published his Thoughts concerning 
Education, 8vo. which he greatly improved in subsequent 
editions. In 1695, king William, who knew how to appre- 
ciate his abilities for serving the public, appointed him one 
of the commissioners of trade and plantations} which 
obliged him to reside more in London than he had done 
for some time past. In the same year, he published his 
excellent treatise, entitled The Reasonableness of Chris- 
tianity, as delivered in the Scriptures, 8vo. which was 
written, it is said, in order to promote the scheme which 
king William had so much at heart, of a compromise with 
the dissenters. 

The asthmatic complaint, to which Mr. Locke had been 



LIFE OF LOCKE. XI 

long subject, increasing with his years, began now to subdue 
his constitution, and rendered him very infirm. He, there- 
fore, determined to resign his post of commissioner of trade 
and plantations ; but he acquainted none of his friends with 
his design, till he had given up his commission into the 
king's own hand. His majesty was very unwilling to 
receive it, and told our author, that he would be well 
pleased with his continuance in that office, though he should 
give little or no attendance 5 for that he did not desire him 
to stay in town one day to the injury of his health. But 
Mr. Locke told the king, that he could not in conscience 
hold a place to which a considerable salary was annexed, 
without discharging the duties of it 3 upon which the king 
reluctantly accepted his resignation. Mr. Locke's behaviour 
in this instance discovered such a degree of integrity and 
virtue, as reflects more honour on his character than his 
extraordinary intellectual endowments. His majesty enter 
tained a great esteem for him, and would sometimes desire 
his attendance, in order to consult with him on public affairs 
and to know his sentiments of things. From this time, Mr. 
Locke continued altogether at Oates, in which agreeable 
retirement he applied himself wholly to the study of the 
sacred Scriptures. In this employment he found so much 
pleasure, that he regretted his not having devoted more of 
his time to it in the former part of his life. And his great 
regard for the sacred writings appears from his answer to a 
relation, who had inquired of him what was the shortest and 
surest way for a young gentleman to attain a true knowl- 
edge of the Christian religion. " Let him study," said 
Mr. Locke, " the holy Scripture, especially in the New 
Testament. Therein are contained the words of eternal 
life. It has God for its author; salvation for its end; and 
truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. ;; Mr. 
Locke now found his asthmatic disorder growing extremely 
troublesome, though it did not prevent him from enjoying 
great cheerfulness of mind. In this situation, his sufferings 
were greatly alleviated by the kind attention and agreeable 
conversation of the accomplished lady Masham, who was 
the daughter of the learned Dr. Cudworth ; as this lady 
and Mr. Locke had a great esteem and friendship for each 
other. At the commencement of the summer of the year 
1703, a season which, in former years, had always restored 
him some degrees of strength, he perceived that it had 



Xll LIFE OF LOCKE. 

begun to fail him more remarkably than ever. This con- 
vinced him that his dissolution was at no great distance, 
and he often spoke of it himself, but always with great com- 
posure ; while he omitted none of the precautions which, 
from his skill in physic, he knew had a tendency to prolong 
his life. At length his legs began to swell 3 and that 
swelling increasing every day, his strength visibly dimin- 
ished. He therefore prepared to take leave of the world, 
deeply impressed with a sense of God ; s manifold blessings 
to him, which he took delight in recounting to his friends, 
and full of a sincere resignation to the divine will, and of 
firm hopes in the promises of future life. As he had been 
incapable for a considerable time of going to church, he 
thought proper to receive the sacrament at home 5 and two 
of his friends communicating with him, as soon as the 
ceremony was finished, he told the minister, "that he was 
in perfect charity with all men, and in a sincere communion 
with the church of Christ, by what name soever it might be 
distinguished. 77 He lived some months after this 5 which 
time he spent in acts of piety and devotion. On the day 
before his death, lady Masham being alone with him, and 
sitting by his bed-side, he exhorted her to regard this world 
only as a state of preparation for a better 5 adding " that 
he had lived long enough, and that he thanked God he had 
enjoyed a happy life 5 but that, after all, he looked upon 
this life to be nothing but vanity. 77 He had no rest that 
night, and resolved to try to rise on the following morning, 
which he did, and was carried into his study, where he was 
placed in an easy chair, and slept for a considerable time. 
Seeming a little refreshed, he would be dressed as he used 
to be, and observing lady Masham reading to herself in the 
Psalms while he was dressing, he requested her to read 
aloud. She did so, and he appeared very attentive, till, 
feeling the approach of death, he desired her to break off, 
and in a few minutes expired, on the twenty-eighth of 
October, 1704, in the seventy- third year of his age. He 
was interred in the church of Oates, where there is a doce©4 
monument erected to his memory, with a rr.odni i&dX£^JkM 
m Latin, written by himself. 



X1U 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction, 3 

Parts, 6 

Reasoning 1 , 7 

Practice and Habits, 16 

Ideas, 19 

Principles, 20 

Mathematics, 29 

Religion, 34 

Ideas, 36 

IndifFerency, 41 

Examine, 41 

Observations, 46 

Bias, 48 

Arguments, 49 

Haste, 51 

Desultory, 53 

Smattering, 54 

Universality, 54 

Reading, « 58 

Intermediate Principles, 61 

Partiality, 62 

Theology, 63 

Partiality, 65 

Haste, 75 

Anticipation, 78 

Resignation 79 



XIV CONTENTS. 

Practice, 80 

Words, 83 

Wandering*, .... , 85 

Distinction, 87 

Similes, 93 

Assent, 95 

Indifferency, 97 

Question, 104 

Perseverance, 104 

Presumptioi), • 105 

Despondency, 106 

Analogy, 110 

Association, Ill 

Fallacies, 115 

Fundamental Verities, 120 

Bottoming, 122 

Transferring of Thoughts, 123 



OF THE 

CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 



Quid tarn teinerariu.m tamque indignum sapientis gravi- 
tate atque constant! a, quam aut falstim sentire. aut quod noil 
satis explorate perceptum sit et cognitum sine uHa dubitatione 
defendere ? Cic. de i\atura Deomm, lib. 1. 



§ 1. Introduction. 

The last resort a man has recourse to in 
the conduct of himself, is his understanding : 
for though we distinguish the faculties of the 
mind, and give the supreme command to the 
will, as to an agent ; yet the truth is, the 
man who is the agent determines himself to 
this or that voluntary action, upon some pre- 
cedent knowledge, or appearance of knowl- 
edge in the understanding. No man ever 
sets himself about any thing but upon some 
view or other, which serves him for a reason 
for what he does : and whatsoever faculties 
he employs, the understanding with such light 
as it has, well or ill informed, constantly 
leads ; and by that light, true or false, all hfe 
operative powers are directed. The will it- 
self, how absolute and uncontrollable soever it 
may be thought, never fails in its obedience 
to the dictates of the understanding. Tern- 



4 OF THE CONDUCT 

pies have their sacred images, and we see 
what influence they have always had over a 
great part of mankind. But in truth, the 
ideas and images in men's minds are the in- 
visible powers that constantly govern them ; 
and to these they all universally pay a ready 
submission. It is, therefore, of the highest 
concernment, that great care should be taken 
of the understanding, to conduct it right in 
the search of knowledge, and in the judg- 
ments it makes. 

The logic now in use, has so long possessed 
the chair, as the only art taught in the schools 
for the direction of the mind in the study of 
the arts and sciences, that it would perhaps 
be thought an affectation of novelty to suspect, 
that rules, that have served the learned world 
these two or three thousand years, and which 
without any complaint of defects, the learned 
have rested in, are not sufficient to guide the 
understanding. — And I should not doubt but 
this attempt would be censured as vanity or 
presumption, did not the great lord Verulam's 
authority justify it: who, not servilely thinking 
learning could not be advanced beyond what 
it was, because for many ages it had not been, 
did not rest in the lazy approbation and ap- 
plause of what was, because it was ; but en- 
larged his mind to what it might be. In his 
preface to his Novum Organum concerning lo- 
gic, he pronounces thus : Qui summas dialecticaz 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 6 

partes tribuerunt, at que hide Jidissima scientiis 
prcesidia comparari putarunt, verissime et optime 
viderunt intellectual humanum sibi pefndsswn me- 
tito suspecium esse debere. Verum injirmior om- 
nino est malo medicina ; nee ipsa mali expers. 
Siquidem dialeciica, quce recepta est, licet ad civi- 
lia et arieSy quce in sermone et opinione positce 
sunt, reciissime adhibeaiur ; natures tamen sub- 
llliialem longo iniervallo -non attingit, et pren- 
sando quod noncapit, ad errores potius slabilien- 
dos et quasi jigendos, quam ad viam ventati 
aperiendam valuii. 

u They, says he, who attributed so much to 
logic, perceived very well and truly, that it 
was not safe to trust the understanding; to it- 
self, without the guard of any rules. But 
the remedy reached not the evil, but became 
a part of it : for the logic which took place, 
though it might do well enough in civil affairs, 
and the arts which consisted in talk and opin- 
ion ; yet comes very far short of subtilty in 
the real performances of nature, and catch- 
ing at what it cannot reach, has served to 
confirm and establish errors, rather than to 
open a way to truth." And therefore a little 
after he says, " That it is absolutely necessary 
that a better and perfecter use and employ- 
ment of the mind and understanding should 
be introduced." " Necessario requireiur ut me- 
lior et perfectior mentis et intellectus humani use* 
et adoperatio intrcducalur." 
b2 



6 OF THE CONDUCT 

§ 2. Parts. 

There is, it is visible, great variety in men-s 
understandings, and their natural constitutions 
put so wide a difference between some men 
in this respect, that art and industry would 
never be able to master ; and their very na- 
tures seem to want a foundation to raise on it 
that which other men easily attain unto — — 
Amongst men of equal education there is 
great inequality of parts. And the woods of 
America, as well as the schools of Athens, 
produce men of several abilities in the same 
kind. Though this be so, yet I imagine most 
men come very short of what they might attain 
unto in their several degrees by a neglect of 
their understandings. A few rules of logic 
are thought sufficient in this case for those 
who pretend to the highest improvement ; 
whereas, I think there are a great many na- 
tural defects in the understanding capable of 
amendment, which are overlooked and wholly 
neglected. And it is easy to perceive that 
men are guilty of a great many faults in the 
exercise and improvement of this faculty of 
the mind, which hinder them in their progress, 
and keep them in ignorance and error all 
their lives. Some of them I shall take notice 
of, and endeavour to point out proper reme- 
dies for in the following discourse. 



Of THE UNDERSTANDING. 7 

§ 3. Reasoning. 

Besides the want of determined ideas, and 
of sagacity, and exercise in finding out, and 
laying in order intermediate ideas, there 
are three miscarriages that men are guilty of 
in reference to their reason, whereby this 
faculty is hindered in them from that service 
it might do and was designed for. And he 
that reflects upon the actions and discourses of 
mankind, will find their defects in this kind 
very frequent, and very observable. 

1. The first is of those who seldom reason 
at all, but do and think according: to the ex- 
ample of others, whether parents, neighbours, 
ministers, or who else they are pleased to 
make choice of to have an implicit faith in, 
for the saving of themselves the pains and 
trouble of thinking and examining for them- 
selves. 

2. The second is of those who put passion 
in the place of reason, and being resolved 
that shall govern their actions and arguments, 
neither use their own, nor hearken to other 
people's reason, any farther than it suits their 
humour, interest, or party ; and these one 
may observe commonly content themselves 
with words which have no distinct ideas to 
them, though, in other matters that they 
come with an unbiassed indifferency to, they 



8 OF THE CONDUCT 

want not abilities to talk and hear reason > 
where they have no secret inclination that 
hinders them from being tractable to it. 

3. The third sort is of those who readily 
and sincerely follow reason, but for want of 
having that which one may call large, sound, 
round-about sense, have not a full view of all 
that relates to the question, and may be of 
moment to decide it. We are all short- 
sighted, and very often see but one side of a 
matter ; our views are not extended to all 
that has a connection with it. From this de- 
fect I think no man is free. We see but in 
part, and we know but in part, and there- 
fore it is no wonder we conclude not right . 
from our partial views. This might instruct 
the proudest esteemer of his own parts, 
how useful it is to talk and consult with 
others, even such as come short of him in 
capacity, quickness and penetration : for, 
since no one sees all, and we generally have 
different prospects of the same thing, accord- 
ing to our different, as I may say, positions 
to it, it is not incongruous to think, nor 
beneath any man to try, whether another 
may not have notions of things which have 
escaped him, and which his reason would 
make use of if they came into his mind. 
The faculty of reasoning seldom or never 
deceives those who trust to it ; its conse- 
quences from what it builds on are evident 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 9 

and certain, but that which it oftenest, if not 
only, misleads us in, is, that the principles 
from which we conclude, the grounds upon 
which we bottom our reasoning, are but a 
part, something is left out which should go 
into the reckoning to make it just and exact. 
Here we may imagine a vast and almost in- 
finite advantage that angels and separate 
spirits may have over us ; who, in their sever- 
al degrees of elevation above us, may be 
endowed with more comprehensive faculties, 
and some of them perhaps having perfect 
and exact views of all finite beings that come 
under their consideration, can as it were, in 
the twinkling of an eye, collect together all 
their scattered and almost boundless rela&ons. 
A mind so furnished, what reason has it to 
acquiesce in the certainty of its conclusions ! 
In this we may see the reason why some 
men of study and thought, that reason right, 
and are lovers of truth, do make no great 
advances in their discoveries of it. Error 
and truth are uncertainly blended in their 
minds ; their decisions are lame and defec- 
tive, and they are very often mistaken in 
their judgments : the reason whereof is, ihey 
converse but with one sort of men, they read 
but one sort of books, they will not come in 
the hearing but of one sort of notions ; the 
truth is they canton out to themselves a little 
Goshen in the intellectual world, where light 



10 OF THF CONDUCT 

shines, and as they conclude, day blesses 
them ; but the rest of that vast expansum 
they give up to night and darkness, and 
so avoid coming near it. They have a pretty 
traffic with known correspondents in some 
little creek ; within that they confine them- 
selves, and are dexterous managers enough 
of the wares and products of that corner with 
which they content themselves, but will not 
venture out into the great ocean of knowledge, 
to survey the riches that nature hath stored 
other parts with, no less genuine, no less solid, 
no less useful, than what has fallen to their lot 
in the admired plenty and sufficiency of their 
own little spot, which to them contains what- 
soever is good in the universe. Those who 
live thus mewed up within their own con- 
tracted territories, and will not look abroad 
beyond the boundaries that chance, conceit, 
or laziness has set to their inquires, but live 
separate from the notions, discourses, and at- 
tainments of the rest of mankind, may not 
amiss be represented by the inhabitants of 
the Marian islands ; who being separated hy 
a large tract of sea from all communion with 
the habitable parts of the earth, thought 
themselves the only people of the world. 
And though the straitness of the convenien- 
ces of life amongst them had never reached 
so far as to the use of fire, till the Span- 
iards, not many years since, in their voyages 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 11 

from Acapalco to Manilla, brought it amongst 
them : yet in the want and ignorance of al- 
most all things, they looked upon themselves, 
even after that the Spaniards had brought 
amongst them the notice of variety of nations 
abounding in sciences, arts, and conveniences 
of life, of which they knew nothing, they 
looked upon themselves, I say, as the hap- 
piest and wisest people of the universe. But 
for all that, nobody, I think, will imagine 
them deep naturalists, or solid metaphysi- 
cians ; nobody will deem the quickest-sighted 
among them to have very enlarged views in 
ethics or politics, nor can any one allow the 
most capable amongst them to be advanced so 
far in his understanding, as to have any other 
knowledge but of the few little things of his 
and the neighbouring islands within his com- 
merce ; but far enough from that comprehen- 
sive enlargement of mind which adorns a 
soul devoted to truth, assisted with letters, 
and a free generation of the several views 
and sentiments of thinking men of all sides. 
Let not men, there 'ore, that would have 
a sight of what every one pretends to be 
desirous to have a sight of, truth in its full 
extent, narrow and blind their own prospect. 
Let not men think there is no truth but in 
the sciences tbat they study, or the books 
that they read. To prejudge other men's 
notions before we have looked into them, is 



12 OF THF CONDUCT 

not to show their darkness, but to put out our 
own eyes. Try all things, hold fast that which 
is good y is a divine rule, coming from the Fa- 
ther of light and truth 5 and it is hard to 
know what other way men can come at truth, 
to lay hold of it, if they do not dig and search 
for it as for gold and hid treasure : but he 
that does so must have much earth and rub 
bish before he gets the pure metal ; sand, 
and pebbles, and dross usually lie blended 
with it, but the gold is nevertheless gold, and 
will enrich the man that employs his pains to 
seek and separate it. Neither is there any 
danger he should be deceived by the mixture 
Every man carries about him a touchstone, 
if he will make use of it, to distinguish sub- 
stantial gold from superficial glitterings, truth 
from appearances. And indeed the use and 
benefit of this touchstone, which is natural 
reason, is spoiled and lost only by assuming 
prejudices, over-weening presumption, and 
narrowing our minds. The want of exercis- 
ing it in the full extent of things intelligible, 
is that which weakens and extinguishes this 
noble faculty in us. Trace it, and see whe- 
ther it be not so. The day-labourer in a 
country village has commonly but a small 
pittance of knowledge, because his ideas and 
notions have been confined to the narrow 
bounds of a poor conversation and employ- 
ment : the low mechanic of a country town 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 13 

does somewhat outdo him ; porters and coblers 
of great cities surpass them. A country gen- 
tleman who, leaving Latin and learning in the 
university, removes thence to his mansion- 
house, and associates with neighbours of the 
same strain, who relish nothing but hunting 
and a # bottle ; with those alone he spends his 
time, with those alone he converses, and can 
away with no company whose discourse goes 
beyond what claret and dissoluteness inspire. 
Such a patriot formed in this happy way of 
improvement, cannot fail, as we see, to give 
notable decisions upon the bench at quarter- 
sessions, and eminent proofs of his skill in 
politics when the strength of his purse and party 
have advanced him to a more conspicuous 
station. To such a one truly an ordinary 
coffee-house gleaner of the city is an errant 
statesman, and as much superior to, as a man, 
conversant about Whitehall and the court, is 
to an ordinary shopkeeper. To carry this a 
little farther Here is one muffled up in the 
zeal and infallibility of his own sect, and will 
not touch a book, or enter into debate with a 
person that will question any of those things 
which to him are sacred. Another surveys our 
differences in religion with an equitable and 
fair indifference, and so finds probably that 
none of them are in every thing unexception- 
able. These divisions and systems were made 
by men, and carry the mark of fallible on 
c 



14 OP THE CONDUCT 

them ; and in those whom he differs from, and 
till he opened his eyes, had a general prejudice 
against, he meets with more to be said for a 
great many things than before he was aware 
of, or could have imagined. Which of these 
two, now, is most likely to judge right in our 
religious controversies, and to be most stored 
with truth, the mark all pretend to aim at ? 
All these men, that I have instanced in, thus 
unequally furnished with truth, and advanced 
in knowledge, I suppose of equal natural parts ; 
all the odds between them has been the differ- 
ent scope that has been given to their under- 
standings to range in, for the gathering up of 
information, and furnishing their heads with 
ideas and notions and observations, whereon 
to employ their mind and form their under- 
standings. 

It will possibly be objected, u who is suffi- 
cient for all this ?" I answer, more than can 
be imagined. Every one knows what his 
proper business is, and what, according to the 
character he makes of himself, the world may 
justly expect of him \ and, to answ r er that, he 
will find he will have time and opportunity 
enough to furnish himself, if he will not deprive 
himself, by a narrowness of spirit, of those 
helps that are at hand. I do not say, to be a 
good geographer, that a man should visit 
every mountain, river, promontory, and creek, 
upon the face of the earth, view the buildings, 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 15 

and survey the land every where, as if he 
were going to make a purchase ; but yet every 
one must allow that he shall know a country 
better, that makes often sallies into it, and 
traverses up and down, than he that, like 
a mill-horse, goes still round in the same 
track, or keeps within the narrow bounds of a 
field or two that delight him. He that will 
inquire out the best books in every science, 
and inform himself of the most material au- 
thors of the several sects of philosophy and 
religion, will not find it an infinite work to 
acquaint himself with the sentiments of man- 
kind, concerning the most weighty and com- 
prehensive subjects. Let him exercise the 
freedom of his reason and understanding in 
such a latitude as this, and his mind will be 
strengthened, his capacity enlarged, his facul- 
ties improved ; and the light, which the remote 
and scattered parts of truth will give to one 
another, will so assist his judgment, that he 
will seldom be widely out, or miss giving proof 
of a clear head and a comprehensive know- 
ledge. At least, this is the only way I know 
to give the understanding its due improvement 
to the full extent of its capacity, and to dis- 
tinguish the two most different things I know 
in the world, a logical chicaner from a man of 
reason. Only he, that would thus give the 
mind its flight, and send abroad his inquiries 
into all parts after truth, must be sure to settle 



16 OF THE CONDUCT 

in his head determined ideas of all that he 
employs his thoughts about, and never fail to 
judge himself, and judge unbiassedly, of all 
that he receives from others, either in their 
writings or discourses. Reverence or prejudice 
must not be suffered to give beauty or de- 
formity to any of their opinions. 

§ 4. Of Practice and Habits. 

We are born with faculties and powers 
capable almost of any thing, such at least as 
would carry us farther than can easily be ima- 
gined : but it is only the exercise of those 
powers which gives us ability and skill in any 
thing, and leads us towards perfection. 

A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever 
be brought to the carriage and language of a 
gentleman, though his body be as well propor- 
tioned, and his joints as supple, and his natural 
parts not any way inferior. The legs of a 
dancing-master, and the fingers of a musician, 
fall as it were naturally, without thought or 
pains, into regular and admirable motions. 
Bid them change their parts, and they will in 
vain endeavour to produce like motions in the 
members not used to them, and it will require 
length of time and long practice to attain but 
some degrees of a like ability. What incredi- 
ble and astonishing actions do we find rope- 
dancers and tumblers bring their bodies to ! 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 17 

Not but that sundry, in almost all manual arts, 
are as wonderful ; but I name those which the 
world takes notice of for such, because on that 
very account they give money to see them. 
All these admired motions, beyond the reach 
and almost conception of unpractised specta- 
tors, are nothing but the mere effects of use 
and industry in men, whose bodies have noth- 
ing peculiar in them from those of the amazed 
lookers on. 

As it is in the body, so it is in the mind ; 
practice makes it what it is, and most even 
of those excellencies, which are looked on as 
natural endowments, will be found, when ex- 
amined into more narrowly, to be the produci 
of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only 
by repeated actions. Some men are remarked 
for pleasantness in raillery ; others for apo- 
logues and apposite diverting stories. This is 
apt to be taken for the effect of pure nature, 
and that the rather, because it is not got by 
rules, and those who excel in either of them 
never purposely set themselves to the study of 
it, as an art to be learnt. But yet it is true 
that at first some lucky hit, which took with 
somebody, and gained him commendation, 
encouraged him to try again, inclined his 
thoughts and endeavours that way, till at last 
he insensibly got a facility in it, without per- 
ceiving how ; and that is attributed wholly to 
nature, which was much more the effect of 
c2 



18 OF THE CONDUCT 

use and practice. I do not deny that natural 
disposition may often give the first rise to it, 
but that never carries a man far, without use 
and exercise ; and it is practice alone that 
brings the powers of the mind, as well as those 
of the body, to their perfection. Many a good 
poetic vein is buried under a trade, and never 
produces any thing for w r ant of improvement. 
We see the ways of discourse and reasoning 
are very different, even concerning the same 
matter, at court and in the university. And 
he that will go but from Westminster-hall to 
the Exchange, will find a different genius and 
turn in their ways of talking ; and yet one 
cannot think that all whose lot fell in the city 
were born with different parts from those who 
were bred at the university or inns of court. 

To what purpose all this, but to show that 
the difference, so observable in men's under- 
standings and parts, does not arise so much 
from their natural faculties as acquired habits. 
He would be laughed at that should go about 
to make a fine dancer out of a country hed- 
ger, at past fifty. And he will not have much 
better success, who shall endeavour, at that 
age, to make a man reason well, or speak 
handsomely, who has never been used to it, 
though you should lay before him a collection 
of all the best precepts of logic or oratory. 
Nobody is made any thing by hearing of 
rules, or laying them up in his memory ; 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 19 

practice must settle the habit of doing with- 
out reflecting on the rule, and you may as 
well hope to make a good painter or musician 
extempore by a lecture and instruction in the 
arts of music and painting, as a coherent 
thinker, or a strict reasoner, by a set of rules, 
showing him wherein right reasoning consists. 
This being so, that defects and weakness 
in men's understandings, as well as other 
faculties, come from want of a right use of 
their own minds, I am apt to think the fault 
is generally mislaid upon nature, and there 
is often a complaint of want of parts, when 
the fault lies in want of a due improvement 
of them. We see men frequently dexter* 
ous and sharp enough in making a bargain, 
who, if you reason with them about matters 
of religion, appear perfectly stupid. 

§ 5. Ideas. 

I will not here, in what relates to the right 
conduct and improvement of the under- 
standing, repeat again the getting clear and 
determined ideas, and the employing our 
thoughts rather about them than about sounds 
put for them, nor of settling the signification 
of words which we use with ourselves in the 
search of truth, or with others in discoursing 
about it. — Those hinderances of our under- 
standings in the pursuit of knowledge I have 



20 iF THE CONDUCT 

sufficiently enlarged upon in another place , 
so that nothing more needs here to be said 
of those matters. 

6. Principles. 

There is another fault that stops or misleads 
men in their knowledge, which I have also 
spoken something of, but yet is necessary to 
mention here again, that we may examine it 
to the bottom, and see the root it springs 
from, and that is a custom of taking up with 
principles that are not self-evident, and very 
often not so much as true. It is not unusual 
to see men rest their opinions upon founda- 
tions that have no more certainty and solidity 
than the propositions built on them, and em- 
braced for their sake. Such foundations are 
these and the like, viz. The founders or lead- 
ers of my party are good men, and therefore 
their tenets are true ; it is the opinion of a sect 
that is erroneous, therefore it is false ; it hath 
been long received in the world, therefore 
it is true ; or it is new, and therefore false. 

These, and many the like, which are by no 
means the measures of truth and falsehood, 
the generality of men make the standards by 
which they accustom their understanding 
to judge. And thus they falling into a habit 
of determining of truth and falsehood by such 
wrong measures, it is no wonder they should 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 21 

embrace error for certainty, and be very 
positive in things they have no ground for. 

There is not any, who pretends to the 
least reason, but, when any of these his false 
maxims are brought to the test, must ac- 
knowledge them to be fallible, and such as he 
will not allow in those that differ from him ; 
and yet after he is convinced of this, you 
shall see him go on in the use of them, and the 
very next occasion that offers, argue again 
upon the same grounds. Would one not be 
ready to think that men are willing to impose 
upon themselves, and mislead their own 
understandings, who conduct them by such 
wrong measures, even after they see they 
cannot be relied on ? But yet they will not 
appear so blameable as may be thought at 
first sight ; for I think there are a great 
many that argue thus in earnest, and do it 
not to impose on themselves or others. They 
are persuaded of what they say, and think 
there is weight in it, though in a like case 
they have been convinced there is none ; but 
men would be intolerable to themselves, and 
contemptible to others, if they should em- 
brace opinions without any ground, and hold 
what they could give no manner of reason 
for. True or false, solid or sandy, the mind 
must have some foundation to rest itself 
upon, and, as I have remarked in another 
place, it no sooner entertains any proposi- 



22 OF THE CONDUCT 

tion, but it presently hastens to some hy- 
pothesis to bottom it on, till then it is un- 
quiet and unsettled. — So much do our own 
very tempers dispose us to a right use of 
our understandings, if we would follow as 
wc should the inclinations of our nature. 

In some matters of concernment, especial- 
ly those of religion, men are not permitted 
to be always wavering and uncertain, they 
must embrace and profess some tenets or 
other ; and it would be a shame, nay a con- 
tradiction too heavy for any one's mind to 
lie constantly under, for him to pretend seri- 
ously to be persuaded of the truth of any 
religion, and yet not be able to give any rea- 
son of his belief, or to say any thing for his 
preference of this to any other opinion ; and 
therefore they must make use of some prin- 
ciples or other, and those can be no other 
than such as they have and can manage : and 
to say they are not in earnest persuaded by 
them, and do not rest upon those they make 
use of, is contrary to experience, and to al- 
lege that they are not misled when we com- 
plain they are. 

If this be so, it will be urged, why then do 
they not make use of sure and unquestionable 
principles, rather than rest on such grounds 
as may deceive them, and will, as is visible, 
serve to support error as well as truth ? 

To this I answer, the reason why they do 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 23 

not make use of better and surer principles, 
is because they cannot : but this inability 
proceeds not from want of natural parts (for 
those few whose case that is are to be ex* 
cused) but for want of use and exercise. 
Few men are from their youth accustomed 
to strict reasoning, and to trace tiie depen- 
dence of any truth in a long train of conse- 
quences to its remotest principles, and to ob* 
serve its connection ; and he that by frequent 
practice has not been used to this employ- 
ment of his understanding, it is no more won- 
der that he should not, when he is grown into 
years, be able to bring his mind to it, than 
that he should not be on a sudden able to 
grave or design, dance on the ropes, or write 
a good hand, who has never practised either 
of them. 

Nay, the most of men are so wholly strangers 
to this, that they do not so much as perceive 
their want of it ; they despatch the ordinary 
business of their callings by rote, as we say, 
as they have learned it ; and if at any time 
they miss success, they impute it to any thing 
rather than want of thought or skill ; that 
they conclude (because they know no better) 
they have in perfection ; or if there be any 
subject that interest or fancy has recom- 
mended to their thoughts, their reasoning 
about it is still after their own fashion ; be it 
better or worse, it serves their turns, and 



24 OF THE CONDUCT 

is the best they are acquainted with ; and 
therefore when they are led by it into mis- 
takes, and their business succeeds according- 
ly, they impute it to any cross accident, or 
default of others, rather than to their own 
want of understanding ; that is, what nobody 
discovers or complains of in himself. What- 
soever made his business to miscarry, it was 
not want of right thought and judgment in 
himself : he sees no such defect in himself, 
but is satisfied *hat he carries on his designs 
well enough by his own reasoning, or at least 
should have done, had it not been for unlucky 
traverses not in his power. Thus being con- 
tent with this short and very imperfect use of 
his understanding, he never troubles himself 
to seek out methods of improving his mind, 
and lives all his life without any notion of 
close reasoning, in a continued connection of a 
long train of consequences from sure foun- 
dations, such as is requisite for the making 
out and clearing most of the speculative 
truths most men own to believe and are most 
concerned in. Not to mention here what I 
shall have occasion to insist on by and by 
more fully, viz. that in many cases it is not 
One series of consequences will serve the 
turn, but many different and opposite deduc- 
tions must be examined and laid together, 
before a man can come to make a right 
judgment of the point in question. What 



OP THE UNDERSTANDING. 25 

then can be expected from men that neither 
see the want of any such kind of reasoning as 
this : nor, if they do, know how to set about 
it, or could perform it ? You may as well set 
a countryman, who scarce knows the figures, 
and never cast up a sum of three particulars, 
to state a merchant's long account, and find 
the true balance of it. 

What then should be done in the case ? I 
answer, we should always remember what I 
said above, that the faculties of our souls are 
improved and made useful to us just after the 
same manner as our bodies are. Would you 
have a man write or paint, dance or fence 
well, or perform any other manual operation 
dexterously and with ease ; let him have ever 
so much vigour and activity, suppleness and 
address naturally, yet nobody expects this 
from him, unless he has been used to it, and 
has employed time and pains in fashioning 
and forming his hand, or outward parts to these 
motions. Just so it is in the mind : would you 
have a man reason well, you must use him to 
it betimes, exercise his mind in observing the 
connexion of ideas, and following them in 
train. Nothing does this better than mathe- 
matics, which, therefore, I think should be 
taught all those who have the time and oppor- 
tunity ; not so much to make them mathema- 
ticians, as to make them reasonable creatures ; 
for though we all call ourselves so, because 



26 OF THE CONDUCT 

we are bom to it, if we please ; yet we may 4 
truly say, nature gives us but the seeds of it : 
we are born to be, if we please, rational crea- 
tures ; but it is use and exercise only that 
make us so, and we are, indeed, so no farther 
than industry and application have carried us. 
And, therefore, in ways of reasoning, which 
men have not been used to, he that will observe 
the conclusions they take up, must be satisfied 
they are not all rational. 

This has been the less taken notice of, be- 
cause every one, in his private affairs, uses 
some sort of reasoning or other, enough to 
denominate him reasonable. But the mistake 
is, that he that is found reasonable in one 
thing, is concluded to be so in all, and to think 
or to say otherwise is thought so unjust an af- 
front, and so senseless a censure, that nobody 
ventures to do it. It looks like the degradation 
of a man below the dignity of his nature. It 
is true, that he that reasons well in any one 
thing has a mind naturally capable of reasoning 
well in others, and to the same degree of 
strength and clearness, and possibly much 
greater, had his understanding been so em- 
ployed. But it is as true that he who can 
reason well to-day about one sort of matters, 
cannot at all reason to-day about others, 
though perhaps a year hence he may. But 
wherever a man's rational faculty fails him, 
and will not serve him to reason, there we 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 27 

cannot say he is rational, how capable soev- 
er he may be, by time and exercise, to be- 
come so. 

Try in men of low and mean education, who 
have never elevated their thoughts above the 
spade and the plough, nor looked beyond the 
ordinary drudgery of a day-labourer. Take 
the thoughts of such an one, used for many 
years to one track, out of that narrow com- 
pass, he has been all his life confined to, you 
will find him no more capable of reasoning 
than almost a perfect natural. Some one or 
two rules, on which their conclusions imme- 
diately depend, you will find in most men have 
governed ail their thoughts ; these, true or 
false, have been the maxims they have been 
guided by : take these from them, and they 
are perfectly at a loss, their compass and pole- 
star then are gone, and their understanding is 
perfectly at a nonplus ; and therefore they 
either immediately return to their old maxims 
again, as the foundations of all truth to them, 
notwithstanding a.l that can be said to show 
their weakness ; o * if they give them up to 
their reasons, they, with them, give up all 
truth and farther inquiry, and think there is 
no such thing as certainty. For if you would 
enlarge their thoughts, and settle them upon 
more remote and surer principles, they either 
cannot easily apprehend them ; or, if they 
can, know not what use to make ©f them ; for 



28 OP THE COXDUCT 

long deductions from remote principles are 
what they have not been used to, and cannot 
manage. 

What then, can grown men never be im- 
proved, or enlarged in their understandings ? 
I say not so ; but this I think I may say, that 
kt will not be done without industry and appli- 
cation, which will require more time and 
pains than grown men, settled in their course 
of life, will allow to it, and therefore very sel- 
dom is done. And this very capacity of at- 
taining it, by use and exercise only, brings us 
back to that which I laid down before, that it 
is only practice that improves our minds ajs 
well as bodies, and we must expect nothing 
from our understandings, any farther than they 
are perfected by habits. 

The Americans are not all born with worse 
understandings than the Europeans, though we 
see none of them have such reaches in the arts 
and sciences. And, among the children of a 
poor countryman, the lucky chance of educa- 
tion, and getting into the world, gives one in- 
finitely the superiority in parts over the rest, 
who, continuing at home, had continued also 
just of the same size with his brethren. 

He that has to do with young scholars, 
especially in mathematics, may perceive how 
their minds open by degrees, and how it is ex- 
ercise alone that opens them. Sometimes they 
will stick a long time at a part of demonstra- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING; 29 

tion, not for want of will and application, but 
really for want of perceiving the connexion of 
two ideas, that, to one whose understanding is 
more exercised, is as visible as any thing can 
be. The same would be with a grown man 
beginning to study mathematics ; the under- 
standing, for want of use, often sticks in eve- 
ry plain way, and he himself that is so puz- 
zled, when he comes to see the connexion, 
wonders what it was he stuck at, in a case so 
plain. 

§ 7. Mathematics. 

I have mentioned mathematics as a way to 
settle in the mind a habit of reasoning closely 
and in train ; not that I think it necessary 
that all men should be deep mathematicians, 
but that, having got the way of reasoning, 
which that study necessarily brings the mind 
to, they might be able to transfer it to other 
parts of knowledge, as they shall have occa- 
sion. For, in all sorts of reasoning, every sin- 
gle argument should be managed as a mathe- 
matical demonstration : the connexion and de- 
pendence of ideas should be followed, till the 
mind is brought to the source on which it bot- 
toms, and observes the coherence all along, 
though in proofs of probability one such train 
is not enough to settle the judgment, as in de- 
monstrative knowledge. 
d2 



SO OF THE COxNTDUCT 

Where a truth is made out by one demon- 
stration, there needs no farther inquiry ; but 
in probabilities where there wants demonstra- 
tion to establish the truth beyond doubt, there 
it is not enough to trace one argument to its 
source, and observe its strength and weakness, 
but all the arguments, after having been so 
examined on both sides, must be laid .in bal- 
ance one against another, and, upon the whole, 
the understanding determine its assent. 

This is a way of reasoning the understand- 
ing should be accustomed to, which is so dif- 
ferent from what the illiterate are used to, 
that even learned men oftentimes seem to 
have very little or no notion of it. Nor is it 
to be wondered, since the way of disputing, 
in the schools, leads them quite away from it, 
by insisting on one topical argument, by the 
success of which the truth or lalsehood of the 
question is to be determined, and victory ad- 
judged to the opponent or defendant ; which 
is all one as if one should ba!ance an account 
by one sum, charged and discharged, when 
there are an hundred others to be taken into 
consideration. 

This, therefore, it would be well if mens' 
minds were accustomed to, and that early ; 
that they might not erect their opinions upon 
one single view, when so many other are requi- 
site to make up the account, and must come 
into the reckoning, before a man can form a 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 31 

right judgment. This would enlarge their 
minds, and give a due freedom to their under- 
standings, that they might not be led into er- 
ror by presumption, laziness, or precipitancy ; 
for I think nobody can approve such a con- 
duct of the understanding as should mislead it 
from truth, though it be ever so much in fash- 
ion to make use of it. 

To this perhaps it will be objected, that to 
manage the understanding as I propose would 
require every man to be a scholar, and to be 
furnished with all the materials of knowledge, 
and exercised in all the ways of reasoning. 
To which I answer, that it is a shame for 
those that have time, and the means to attain 
knowledge, to want any helps or assistance, 
for the improvement of their understandings, 
that are to be got ; and to such I would be 
thought here chiefly to speak. Those me- 
thinks, who by the industry and parts of their 
ancestors, have been set free from a constant 
drudgery to their backs and their bellies, 
should bestow some of their spare time on 
their heads, and upon their minds, by some 
trials and essays, in all the sorts and matters 
of reasoning. I have before mentioned ma- 
thematics, wherein algebra gives new helps 
and views to the understanding. If I propose 
these, it is not, as I said, to make every man 
a thorough mathematician, or a deep algebra- 
ist ; but yet I think the study of them is of 



32 OF THE CONDUCT 

infinite use, even to grown men ; first, by ex- 
perimentally convincing them, that to make 
any one reason well, it is not enough to have 
parts wherewith he is satisfied, and that serve 
him well enough in his ordinary course. A 
man in those studies will see, that however 
good he may think his understanding, yet in 
many things, and those very visible, it may fail 
him. This would take off that presumption 
that most men have of themselves in this 
part ; and they would not be so apt to think 
their minds wanted no helps to enlarge them, 
that there could be nothing added to the 
acuteness and penetration of their understand- 
ings. 

Secondly, The study of mathematics would 
show them the necessity there is in reasoning, 
to separate all the distinct ideas, and see the 
habitudes that all those concerned in the pres- 
ent inquiry have to one another, and to lay by 
those which relate not to the proposition in 
hand, and wholly to leave them out of the 
reckoning. This is that which in other sub- 
jects, besides quantity, is what is absolutely 
requisite to just reasoning, though in them it 
is not so easily observed, nor so carefully 
practised. In those parts of knowledge where 
it is thought demonstration has nothing to do, 
men reason as it were in the lump ; and it 
upon a summary and confused view, or upon 
a partial consideration, they can raise the ap- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 33 

pcarance of a probability, they usually rest 
content ; especially if it be in a dispute where 
every little straw is laid hold on, and every 
thing that can but be drawn in any way to 
give colour to the argument is advanced with 
ostentation. But that mind is not in a posture 
to find the truth, that does not distinctly take 
all the parts asunder, and, omitting what is 
not at all to the point, draw a conclusion from 
the result of all the particulars which any 
way influence it. There is another no less 
useful habit to te got by an application to 
mathematical demonstrations, and that is, of 
using the mind to a long train of consequen- 
ces ; but having mentioned that already, I 
shall not again here repeat it. 

As to men whose fortunes and time are 
narrower, what may suffice them is not of 
that vast extent as may be imagined and so 
comes not within the objection. 

Nobody is under an obligation to know 
every thing. Knowledge and science in gen- 
eral is the business onlv of those who are at 
ease and leisure. Those who have particular 
callings ought to understand them ; and it is 
no unreasonable proposal, nor impossible to 
be compassed, that they should think and 
reason right about w r hat is their daily employ- 
ment. This one cannot think them incapable 
of, without levelling them with the brutes, 



34 OF THE CONDUCT 

and charging them with a stupidity below the 
rank of rational creatures. 

5) 8. Religion. 

Besides his particular calling for the support 
of this life, every one has a concern in a fu- 
ture life, which he is bound to look after. 
This engages his thoughts in religion ; and 
here it mightily lies upon him to understand 
and reason right. Men, therefore, cannot 
be excused from understanding the words, and 
framing the general notions relating to reli- 
gion, right. The one day of seven, besides 
other days of rest, allows in the Christian 
world time enough for this (had they no other 
idle hours) if they would but make use of 
these vacancies from their daily labour, and 
apply themselves to an improvemnt of knowl- 
edge with as much diligence as they often do 
to a great many other things that are useless, 
and had but those that would enter them ac- 
cording to their several capacities in a right 
way to this knowledge. The original make 
of their minds is like that of other men, and 
they would be found not to want understand- 
ing fit to receive the knowledge of religion, if 
they were a little encouraged and helped in it, 
as they should be. For there are instances 
of very mean people, who have raised their 
minds to a great sense and understanding of 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 35 

religion : and though these have not been so 
frequent as could be wished ; yet they are 
enough to clear that condition of life from a 
necessity of gross ignorance, and to show 
that more might be brought to be rational 
creatures and Christians (for they can hardly 
be thought really to be so, who, wearing the 
name, know not so much as the very princi- 
ples of that religion) if due care were taken 
of them. For, If I mistake not, the peas- 
antry lately in France (a rank of people un- 
der a much heavier pressure of want and 
poverty than the day-labourers in England) 
of the reformed religion understood it much 
better, and could say more for it than those 
of a higher condition among us. 

But if it shall be concluded that the mean- 
er sort of people must give themselves up to 
brutish stupidity in the things of their nearest 
concernment, which I see no reason for, this 
excuses not those of a freer fortune and 
education, if they neglect their understand- 
ings, and take no care to employ them as 
they ought, and set them right in the knowl- 
edge of those things for which principally 
they were given them. At least those, whose 
plentiful fortunes allow them the opportunities 
and helps of improvements, are not so few, 
but that it might be hoped great advance- 
ments might be made in knowledge of all 
kinds, especially in that of the greatest con- 



36 OF THE CONDUCT 

cern and largest views, if men would make 
a right use of their faculties, and study their 
own understandings. 

§ 9. Ideas. 

Outward corporeal objects, that constantly 
importune our senses, and captivate our ap- 
petites, fail not to fill our heads with lively 
and lasting ideas of that kind. Here the 
mind needs not to be set upon getting greater 
store ; they offer themselves fast enough, and 
are usually entertained in such plenty, arid 
lodged so carefully, that the mind wants room 
or attention for others that it has more use and 
need of. To fit the understanding therefore 
for such reasoning as I have been above 
speakirg of, care should be taken to fill it 
with moral and more abstract ideas ; for 
these not offering themselves to the senses, 
but being to be framed to the understanding 
people are generally so neglectful of a faculty 
they are apt to think wants nothing, that I 
fear most men's minds are more unfurnished 
with such ideas than is imagined. They often 
use the words, and how can they be suspected 
to want the ideas ? What I have said in the 
third book of my Essay, will excuse me from 
any other answer to this question. But to 
convince people of what moment it is to 
their understandings to be furnished with 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 37 

such abstract ideas steady and settled in 
them, give me leave to ask how any one shall 
be able to know whether he be obliged to be 
just, if he has not established ideas in his 
mind of obligation and of justice, since knowl- 
edge consists in nothing but the perceived 
agreement or disagreement of those ideas ? 
and so of all others the like, which concern 
our lives and manners. And if men do find 
a difficulty to see the agreement or disagree- 
ment of two angles which lie before their 
eyes, unalterable in a diagram, how utterly 
impossible will it be to perceive it in ideas 
that have no other sensible objects to repre- 
sent them to the mind but sounds, with which 
they have no manner of conformity, and 
therefore had need to be clearly settled in 
the mind themselves, if we would make any 
clear judgment about them. This therefore 
is one of the first things the mind should be 
employed about in the right conduct of the 
understanding, without which it is impossible 
it should be capable of reasoning right about 
those matters. But in these, and all other 
ideas, care must be taken that they harbour 
no inconsistencies, and that they have a real 
existence where real existence is supposed, 
and are not mere chimeras with a supposed 
existence. 

E 



38 OF THE CONDUCT 

§ 10. Prejudice. 

Every one is forward to complain of the 
prejudices that mislead other men or parties, 
as if he were free, and had none of his own. 
This being objected on all sides, it is agreed, 
that it is a fault and an hinderance to knowl- 
edge. What now is the cure ? No other but 
this, that every man should let alone other's 
prejudices, and examine his own. — Nobody 
is convinced of his by the accusation of 
another, he recriminates by the same rule, 
and is clear. The only way to remove this 
great cause of ignorance and error out of 
the world is for every one impartially to ex- 
amine himself. If others will not deal fairly 
with their own minds, does that make my 
errors truths ? or ought it to make me in love 
with them, and willing to impose on myself ? 
If others love cataracts in their eyes, should 
that hinder me from couching mine as soon 
as I can ? Every one declares against blind- 
ness, and yet who almost is not fond of that 
which dims his sight and keeps the clear light 
out of his mind, which should lead him into 
truth and knowledge ? False or doubtful 
positions, relied upon as unquestionable max- 
ims, keep those in the dark from truth who 
build on them. Such are usually the preju- 
dices imbibed from education, party, rever- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 39 

ence, fashion, interest, &c. This is the mote 
which every one sees in his brother's eye, 
but never regards the beam in his own. For 
who is there almost that is ever brought fairly 
to examine his own principles, and see whe- 
ther they are such as will bear the trial ? But 
yet this should be one of the first things every 
one should set about, and be scrupulous in, 
who would rightly conduct his understanding 
in the search of truth and knowledge. 

To those who are willing to get rid of this 
great hinderance of knowledge (for to such 
only I write) to those who would shake off 
this great and dangerous impostor prejudice, 
who dresses up falsehood in the likeness of 
truth, and so dexterously hoodwinks men's 
minds , as to keep them in the dark, with a 
belief that they are more in the light than 
any that do not see with their eyes ; I shall 
offer this one mark whereby prejudice may 
be known. He that is strongly of any opin- 
ion, must suppose (unless he be self-con- 
demned) that his persuasion is built upon 
good grounds ; and that his assent is no 
greater than what the evidence of the truth 
he holds forces him to ; and that they are 
arguments, and not inclination or fancy, that 
make him so confident and positive in his 
tenets. Now, if after all his profession, he 
cannot bear any opposition to his opinion, if 



40 OF THE CONDUCT 

he cannot so much as give a patient hearing, 
much less examine and weigh the arguments 
on the other side, does he not plainly confess 
it is prejudice governs him ? and it is not the 
evidence of truth, but some lazy anticipation, 
some beloved presumption that he desires to 
rest undisturbed n. For if what he holds be, 
as he gives out, well fenced with evidence, and 
he sees it to be true, what need he fear to put 
it to the proof ? If his opinion be settled upon 
a firm foundation, if the arguments that sup- 
port it, and have obtained his assent, be clear, 
good, and convincing, why should he be shy to 
have it tried whether they be proof or not ? 
He whose assent goes beyond his eviuence, 
owes this excess of his adherence only to pre- 
judice, and does in effect own it, when he 
refuses to hear what is offered against it ; 
declaring thereby, that it is not evidence he 
seeks, but the quiet enjoyment of the opinion 
he is fond of, with a forward condemnation 
of all that may etand in opposition to it, un- 
heard and unexamined ; which, what is it but 
prejudice ? Qui cequum statuerit parte inaudila 
altera eliamsi cequum statuerit, haud cequus fuer- 
it. He that would acquit himself in this case 
as a lover of truth, not giving way to any 
preoccupation or bias that may mislead him, 
must do two things that are not very common, 
nor very easy. 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 41 

§ 11. Indifferency. 

First, he must not be in love with any opin- 
ion, or wish it to be true, till he knows it to 
be so, and then he will not need to wish it ; 
for nothing that is false can deserve our good 
wishes, nor a desire that it should have the 
place and force of truth ; and yet nothing is 
more frequent than this. Men are fond of 
certain tenets upon no other evidence but 
respect and custom, and think they must 
maintain them, or all is gone ; though they 
have never examined the ground they stand 
on, nor have ever made them out to them- 
selves, or can make them out to others : we 
should contend earnestly for the truth, but 
we should first be sure that it is truth, or else 
we fight against God, who is the God of truth, 
and do the work of the devil, who is the 
father and propagator of lies ; and our zeal, 
though ever so warm, will not excuse us, for 
this is plainly prejudice. 

§12. Examine. 

Secondly, he must do that which he will find 
himself very averse to, as judging the thing 
unnecessary, or himself incapable of doing 
it. He must try whether his principles be 
certainly true, or not, and how far he may 
safely rely upon them. This, whether fewer 
e2 



4$ OF THE CONDUCT 

have the heart or the skill to do, I shall not 
determine ; but this, I am sure, is that which 
every one ought to do, who professes to love 
truth, and would not impose upon himself ; 
which is a surer way to be made a fool of 
than by being exposed to the sophistry of 
others. The disposition to put any cheat 
upon ourselves works constantly, and we are 
pleased with it, but are impatient of being ban- 
tered or misled by others. The inability i here 
speak of is not any natural defect that makes 
men incapable of examining their own princi- 
ples. To such, rules of conducting their 
understandings are useless; and that is the case 
of very few. The great number is of those 
whom the ill habit of never exerting their 
thoughts has disabled ; the powers of their 
minds are starved by disuse, and have lost 
that reach and strength which nature fitted 
them to receive from exercise. Those who 
are in a condition to learn the first rules of 
plain arithmetic, and could be brought to cast 
up an ordinary sum, are capable of this, if 
they had but accustomed their minds to rea- 
soning : but they that have wholly neglected 
the exercise of their understandings in this 
way, will be very far, at first, from being 
able to do it, and as unfit for it as one un- 
practised in figures to cast up a shop-book, 
and, perhaps, think it as strange to be set 
about it. And yet it must nevertheless be 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 43 

confessed to be a wrong use of our understand- 
ings, to build our tenets (in things where we 
are concerned to hold the truth) upon prin- 
ciples that may lead us into error. We take 
our principles at hap-hazard, upon trust, and 
without ever having examined them, and then 
believe a whole system, upon a presumption 
that they are true and solid ; and what is all 
this, but childish, shameful, senseless cre- 
dulity ? 

In these two things, viz. an equal in- 
differ ency for all truth ; I mean the receiving 
it, the love of it, as truth, but not loving it 
for any other reason, before w r e know it to 
be true ; and in the examination of our prin- 
ciples, and not receiving any for such, nor 
building on thern, till we are fully convinced, 
as rational creatures, of their so idity, truth, 
and certainty ; consists that freedom of the 
understanding which is necessary to a rational 
creature, and without which it. is not truly 
an understanding. It is conceit, fancy, ex- 
travagance, any thing rather than under- 
standing, if it must be under the constraint 
of receiving and holding opinions by the 
authority of any thing but their own, not 
fancied, but perceived, evidence. This was 
rightly called imposition, and is of all other 
the worst and most dangerous sort of it. For 
we impose upon ourselves, which is the 
strongest imposition of all others ; and we 



44 OF THE CONDUCT 

impose upon ourselves in that part which 
ought with the greatest care to be kept free 
from all imposition. The world is apt to cast 
great blame on those who have an indifferen- 
cy for opinions, especially in religion. I fear 
this is the foundation of great error and 
worse consequences. To be indifferent which 
of two opinions is true, is the right temper of 
the mind that preserves it from being imposed 
on, and disposes it to examine with that in- 
differency, till it has done its best to find the 
truth, and this is the only direct and safe way to 
it. But to be indifferent whether we embrace 
falsehood or truth, is the great road to error. 
Those who are not indifferent which opinion 
is true, are guilty of this ; they suppose with- 
out examining, that what they hold is true, 
and they think they ought to be zealous for 
it. Those, it is plain by their warmth and 
eagerness, are not indifferent for their own 
opinions, but methinks are very indifferent 
whether they be true or false ; since they 
cannot endure to have any doubts raised, 
or objections made against them ; and it is 
visible they never have made any themselves, 
and so, never having examined, know not, 
nor are concerned, as they should be, to 
know whether they be true or false. 

These are the common and most general 
miscarriages which I think men should avoid, 
or rectify, in a right conduct of their under- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 45 

standings, and should be particularly taken 
care of in education. The business whereof, 
in respect of knowledge, is not, as I think, to 
perfect a learner in all or any one of the 
sciences, but to give his mind that freedom, 
that disposition, and those habits, that may 
enable him to attain any part of knowledge 
he shall apply himself to, or stand in need of 
in the future course of his life. 

This, and this only, is well principling, and 
not the instilling a reverence and veneration 
for certain dogmas, under the specious title 
of principles, which are often so remote from 
that truth and evidence which belongs to prin- 
ciples, that they ought to be rejected, as false 
and erroneous ; and often cause men so edu- 
cated, when they come abroad into the world, 
and find they cannot maintain the principles 
so taken up and rested in, to cast oft* all prin- 
cip'es, and turn perfect skeptics, regardless 
of knowledge and virtue. 

There are several weaknesses and defects 
in the understanding;, either from the natural 
temper of the mind, or ill habits taken up, 
which hinder it in its progress to knowledge. 
Of these, there are as many, possibly, to be 
found, if the mind were thoroughly studied, as 
there are diseases of the body, each whereof 
clogs and disables the understanding to some 
degree, and therefore deserves to be looked 
after and cured t shall set down some few 



46 OP THE CONDUCT 

to excite men, especially those who make 
knowledge their business, to look into them- 
selves, and observe whether they do not in- 
dulge some weaknesses, allow some miscar- 
riages in the management of their intellect- 
ual faculty, which is prejudicial to them in 
the search of truth. 

§13. Observations 

Particular matters of fact are the un- 
doubted foundations on which our civfl and 
natural knowledge is built : the benefit the 
understanding makes of them is to draw from 
them conclusions, whicn may be as standing 
rules of knowledge, and consequently of 
practice. The mind often makes not that 
benefit it should of the information it receives 
from the accounts of civil or natural histo- 
rians, by being too forward or too slow in 
making observations on the particular facts 
recorded in them. 

There are those who are very assiduous, 
in reading, and yet do not much advance 
their knowledge by it. They are delighted 
with the stories that are told, and perhaps 
can tell them again, for they make all they 
read nothing but history to themselves ; but 
not reflecting on it, not making to them- 
selves observations from what they read, they 
are very little improved by all that crowd of 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 47 

particulars, that either pass through, or lodge 
themselves in, their understandings. They 
dream on in a constant course of reading and 
cramping themselves, but not digesting any 
thing, it produces nothing but a heap of cru- 
dities. 

If their memories retain well, one may say 
they have the materials of knowledge, but 
like those for building, they are of no advan- 
tage, if there be no other use made of them 
but to let them lie heaped up together. — Op- 
posite to these there are others who lose the 
improvement they should make of matters of 
fact by a quite contrary conduct. They are 
apt to draw general conclusions, and raise ax- 
ioms from every particular they may meet 
with. These make as little true benefit of 
history as the other ; nay, being of forward 
and active spirits, receive more harm by it ; 
it being of worse consequence to steer one's 
thoughts by a wrong rule, than to have none 
at all ; error doing to busy men much more 
harm than ignorance to the slow and sluggish. 
Between these, those seem to do best, who 
taking material and useful hints, sometimes 
from single matters of fact, carry them into 
their minds to be judged of, by what they 
shall find in history to confirm or reverse these 
imperfect observations ; which may be estab- 
lished into rules fit to be relied on, when they 
are justified by a sufficient and wary induction 



48 OF THE CONDUCT 

of particulars. He that makes no such re- 
flections on what he reads, only loads his mind 
with a rhapsody of tales fit in winter nights 
for the entertainment of others : and he that 
w r ill improve every matter of fact into a max- 
im, will abound in contrary observations, that 
can be of no other use but to perplex and 
pudder him if he compares them ; or else to 
misguide him, if he gives himself up to the 
authority of that, which for its novelty, or 
for some other fancy, best pleases him. 

§ 14. Bias. 

Next to these, we may place those, who suffer 
their own natural tempers and passions they are 
possessed with to influence their judgments, es- 
pecially of men and things that may any way 
relate to their present circumstances and in- 
terest. Truth is all simple, all pure, will bear 
no mixture of any thing else with it. It is 
rigid and inflexible to any bye interests ; and 
so should the understanding be, whose use aad 
excellency lies in conforming itself to it. To 
think of every thing just as it is in itself, is 
the proper business of the understanding, 
though it be not that which men always em- 
ploy it to. This all men, at first hearing, al- 
low is the right use every one should make of 
his understanding. Nobody will be at such an 
open defiance with common sense, as to pro- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 49 

fess that we should not endeavour to know, 
and think of things as they are in themselves, 
and yet there is nothing more frequent than 
to do the contrary ; and men are apt to ex- 
cuse themselves, and think they have reason to 
do so, if they have but a pretence that it is 
for God, or a good cause ; that is, in effect for 
themselves, their own persuasion or party ; for 
to those in their turns the several sects of men 
especially in matters of religion, entitle God 
and a good cause. But God requires not men 
to wrong or misuse their faculties for him, nor 
to lie to others or themselves for his sake : 
which they purposely do, who will not suffer 
their understandings to have right conceptions 
of the things proposed to them, and design- 
edly restrain themselves from having just 
thoughts of every thing, as far as they are 
concerned to inquire. And as fcr a good 
cause, that needs not such ill helps ; if it be 
good, truth will support it, and it has no need 
of fallacy or falsehood. 

§ 15. Arguments. 

Very muoh of kin to this is the hunting: after 
arguments to make good one side of a ques- 
tion, and wholly to neglect and refuse those 
which favour the other side. What is this 
but wilfully to misguide the understanding, 
and is so far from giving truth its due value, 

F 



50 OF THE CONDUCT 

that it wholly debases it : espouse opinions 
that best comport with their power, profit, or 
credit, and then seek arguments to support 
them ? Truth lit upon this way is of no 
more avail to us than error ; for what is so ta- 
ken up by us may be false as well as true, and 
he has not done his duty who has thus stum- 
bled upon truth in his way to preferment. 

There is another but more innocent way of 
collecting arguments, very familiar among 
bookish men, which is to furnish themselves 
with the arguments they meet with pro and 
con in the questions they study. This helps 
them not to judge right, nor argue strongly, 
but only to talk copiously on either side, 
without being steady and settled in their own 
judgments : for such arguments gathered from 
other men's thoughts, floating only in the me- 
mory, are there ready indeed to supply copi- 
ous talk with some appearance of reason, but 
are far from helping us to judge right. Such 
variety of arguments only distract the under- 
standing that relies on them, unless it has gone 
farther than such a superficial way of examin- 
ing : this is to quit truth for -appearance, only 
to serve our vanity. The sure and only way 
to get true knowledge, is to form in our minds 
clear settled notions of things, with names an- 
nexed to those determined ideas. These we 
are to consider, with their several relations 
and habitudes, and not amuse ourselves with 



* OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 51 

floating names, and words of indetermined 
signification, which we can use in several 
senses to serve a turn. It is in tne perception 
of the habitudes and respects our ideas have 
one to another, that real knowledge consists ; 
and when a man once perceives how far they 
agree or disagree one with another, he will be 
able to judge of what other people say, and 
will not need to be led by the arguments of 
others, which are many of them nothing but 
plausible sophistry. This will teach him to 
state the question right, and see whereon it 
turns ; and thus he will stand upon his own 
legs, and know by his own understanding, 
whereas by collecting and learning arguments 
by heart, he will be but a retainer to others ; 
and when any one questions the foundations 
they are built upon, he will be at a nonplus, 
and be fain to give up his implicit knowledge. 

§ 16. Haste. 

Labour for labour-sake is against nature. 
The understanding, as well as all the other 
faculties, chooses; always the shortest way to 
its end, would presently obtain the knowledge 
it is about, and then set upon some new in- 
quiry. But this, whether laziness or haste, 
often misleads it, and makes it content itself 
with improper ways of search, and such as 
will not serve the turn : sometimes it rests 



52 OF THE CONDUCT 

upon testimony, when testimony of right hps 
nothing to do, because it is easier to believe 
than to be scientifically instructed: sometimes 
it contents itself with one argument, and rests 
satisfied with that, as it were a demonstra- 
tion ; whereas the thing under proof is not 
capable of demonstration, and therefore must 
be submitted to the trial of probabilities, and 
all the material arguments pro and con be ex- 
amined and brought to a balance. In some 
cases the mind is determined by probable 
topics in inquiries, where demonstration may 
be had. AJ1 these and several others, which 
laziness, impatience, custom, and want of use 
and attention lead men into, are misapplica- 
tions of the understanding in the search of 
truth. In every question the nature and man- 
ner of the proof it is capable of should be con- 
sidered, to make our inquiry such as it should 
be. This would save a great deal of frequent- 
ly misemployed pains, and lead us sooner to 
that discovery and possession of truth we are 
capable of. The multiplying variety of ar- 
guments, especially frivolous ones, such as are 
all that are merely verbal, is not only lost la- 
bour, but cumbers the memory to no pur- 
pose, and serves only to hinder it from siez- 
ing and holding of the truth in all those cases 
which are capable of demonstration. In such 
a way of proof the truth and certainty is seen, 
and the mind fully possesses itself of it ; 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 63 

when iii the other way of assent it only 
hovers about it, is amused with uncertainties. 
In this superficial way, indeed, the mind is 
capable of more variety of plausible talk,, 
but is not enlarged, as it should be, in its 
knowledge. It is to this same haste and im- 
patience of the mind also, that a not due 
tracing of the arguments to their true foun- 
dation is owing ; men see a little, presume a 
great deal, and so jump to the conclusion. 
This is a short way to fancy and conceit, and 
(if firmly embraced) to opinionatry, but is 
certainly the farthest way about to knowl- 
edge. For he that will know, must by the 
connexion of the proofs see the truth, and 
the ground it stands on ; and therefore, if 
he has for haste skipped over what he should 
have examined, he must begin and go over 
all again, or else he will never come to knowl- 
edge. 

§ 17. Desultory. 

Another fault of as ill consequence as this, 
which proceeds also from laziness, with a 
mixture of vanity, is the skipping from one 
sort of knowledge to another. Some men's 
tempers are quickly weary of any one thing. 
Constancy and assiduity is what they cannot 
bear : the same study long continued in is as 
intolerable to them as the appearing long in. 
f2 



64 OF THE CONDUCT 

the same clothes, or fashion, is to a court- 
lady. 

§ 18. Smattering. 

Others, that they may seem universally 
knowing, get a little smattering in every 
thing. Both these may fill their heads with 
superficial notions of things, but are very 
much out of the way of attaining truth or 
knowledge. 

§ 19. Universality. 

I do not here speak against the taking a taste 
of every sort of knowledge ; it is certainly 
very useful and necessary to form the mind ; 
but then it must be done in a different way, 
and to a different end. Not for talk and 
vanity to fill the head with shreds of all kinds, 
that he who is possessed of such a frippery 
may be able to match the discourses of all 
he shall meet with, as if nothing could come 
amiss to him ; and his head was so well 
stored a magazi e, that nothing could be pro- 
posed which he was not master of, and was 
readily furnished to entertain any one. — 
This is an excellency, indeed, and a great 
one too, to have a real and true knowledge \a 
all, or most of the objects of contemplatlm. 
But it is what the mind of one and the same 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 55 

man can hardly attain unto ; and the instan- 
ces are so few of those who have, in any 
measure, approached towards it, that I know 
not whether they are to be proposed as ex- 
amples in the ordinary conduct of the under- 
standing. For a man to understand fully the 
business of his particular calling in the com- 
monwealth, and of religion, which is his call- 
ing as he is a man in the world, is usually 
enongh to take up his whole time ; and there 
are few that inform themselves in these, 
which Is every man's proper and peculiar 
business, so to the bottom as they should do. 
But though this be so, and there are very 
few men that extend their thoughts toward 
universal knowledge ; yet I do not doubt, but 
if the right way weie taken, and the methods 
of inquiry were ordered as they should be, 
men of little business and great leisure might 
go a great deal farther in it than is usually 
done. To return to the business in hand; the 
end and use of a little insight in those parts 
of knowledge, which are not a man's proper 
business, is to accustom our minds to all sorts 
of ideas, and the proper ways of examining 
their habitudes and relations. This gives 
the mind a freedom, and the exercising the 
understanding in the several ways of inquiry 
and reasoning, which the most skilful have 
made use of, teaches the mind sagacity and 
and a suppleness to apply itself 



56 OF THE CONDUCT 

more closely and dexterously to the bents 
and trrns of the matter in all its researches 
Besides, this universal taste of all the scien- 
ces, with an indifferency before the mind is 
possessed with any one in particular, and 
grown into love and admiration of what is made 
its darling, will prevent another evil, very 
commonly to be observed in those who have 
from the beginning been seasoned only by 
one part of knowledge. Let a man be given 
up to the contemplation of one sort of knowl- 
edge, and that will become every thing. The 
mind will take such a tincture from a famili- 
arity with that object, that every thing else, 
how remote soever, will be brought under 
the same view. A metaphysician will bring 
ploughing and gardening immediately to ab- 
stract notions : the history of nature shall 
signify nothing to him. An alchymist, on 
the contrary, shall reduce divinity to the 
maxims of his laboratory ; explain morality 
by sal, sulphur, and mercury ; and allegorize 
the Scripture itself, and the sacred mysteries 
thereof, into the philosopher's stone. And I 
heard once a man, who had a more than 
ordinary excellency in music, seriously ac- 
commodate Moses's seven days of the first 
week to the notes of music, as if from thence 
had been taken the measure and method of 
the creation. It is of no small consequence 
to keep the mind from such a possession. 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 57 

which I think is best done by giving it a fair 
and equal view of the whole intellectual 
world, wherein it may see the order, rank, 
and beauty of the whole, and give a just 
allowance to the distinct provinces of the 
several sciences in the due order and useful- 
ness of each of them. 

If this be that which old men will not think 
necessary, nor be easily brought to ; it is fit, 
at least, that it should be practised in the 
breeding of the young. The business of 
education, as I have already observed, is not, 
as I think, to make them perfect in any one 
of the sciences, but so to open and dispose 
their minds, as may best make them capable 
of any, when they shall apply themselves to 
it. If men are, for a long time, accustomed 
only to one sort or method of thoughts, their 
minds grow stiff in it, and do not readily turn 
to another. It is, therefore, to give them 
this freedom, that I think they should be 
made to look into all sorts of knowledge, and 
exercise their understandings in so wide a 
variety and stock of knowledge. But I do 
not propose it as a variety and stock of knowl- 
edge, but a variety and freedom of think- 
ing, as an increase of the powers and activi- 
ty of the mind, not as an enlargement of its 
possessions. 



58 OF v THE CONDUCT 

5} 20. Reading. 

This is that which I think great readers are 
apt to be mistaken in. Those who have read 
of every thing, are thought to understand 
every thing too ; but it is not always so. 
Reading furnishes the mind only with materi- 
als of knowledge ; it is thinking makes what 
we read ours. We are of the ruminating 
kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves 
with a great load of collections, unless we 
chew them over again, they will not give us 
strength and nourishment. There are, in- 
deed, in some writers visible instances of deep 
thoughts, close and acute reasoning, and ideas 
well pursued. The light these would give 
would be of great use, if their reader would 
observe and imitate them ; all the rest at 
best are but particulars fit to be turned into 
knowledge ; but that can be done only by 
our own meditation, and examining the reach, 
force, ar>d coherence of what is said ; and 
then, as far as ayc apprehend and see the 
connexion of ideas, so far it is ours ; without 
that, it is but so much loose matter floating 
in our brain. The memory may be stored, 
but the judgment is little better, and the 
stock of knowledge not increased, by being 
able to repeat what others have said, or pro- 
duce the arguments we have found in them 
Such a knowledge as this is but knowledge by 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 59 

hearsay, and the ostentation of it is at best 
but talking by rote, and very often upon 
weak and wrong principles For all that is to 
be found in books is not built upon true foun- 
dations, nor always rightly deduced from the 
principles it is pretended to be built on. Such 
an examen as is requisite to discover that, 
every reader's mind is not forward to make ; 
especially in those who have given themselves 
up to a party, and only hunt for what they 
can scrape together, that may favour and 
support the tenets of it. Such men wilfully 
exclude themselves from truth, and from all 
true benefit to be received by reading. Others 
of more mdifferency often want attention and 
industry. The mind is backward in itself to 
be at the pains to trace every argument to its 
original, and to see upon what basis it stands, 
and how firmly ; but yet it is this that gives 
so much the advantage to one man more 
than another in reading. The mind should by 
severe rules be tied down to this, at first, un- 
easy task ; use and exercise will give it facili- 
ty. So that those who are accustomed to it 
readily, as it were with one cast of the eye, 
take a view of the argument, and presently, 
in most cases, see where it bottoms. Those 
who have got this faculty, one may say, have 
got the true key of books, and the clue t® 
lead them through the mizmaze of variety 
of opinions and authors to truth and certain- 



60 OF THE CONDUCT 

ty. This young beginners should be entered 
in, and showed the us3 of, that they may 
profit by their reading. Those who are stran- 
gers to it will be apt to think it too great a 
clog in the way of men's studies, and they 
will suspect they shall make but small pro- 
gress, if, in the books they read, they must 
stand to examine and unravel every argument, 
and follow it step by step up to its original. 

I answ r er, this is a good objection, and 
ought to weigh with those whose reading is 
designed for much talk and little knowledge, 
and I have nothing to say to it. But I am 
here inquiring into the conduct of the under- 
standing in its progress towards knowledge ; 
and to those who aim at that, I may say, that 
he who fair and softly goes steadily forward 
in a course that points right, will sooner be at 
his journey's end, than he that runs after 
every one he meets, though he gallop all day 
full-speed. 

To which let me add, that this way of 
thinking on, and profiting by, what we read, 
will be a clog and rub to any one only in 
the beginning : when custom and exercise 
have made it familiar it will be despatched, 
on most occasions, without resting or inter- 
ruption in the course of our reading. The 
motions and views of a mind exercised that 
way are wonderfully quick ; and a man used 
to such sort of reflections see as much at 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 61 

one glimpse as would require a long discourse 
to lay before another, and make out in an en- 
tire and gradual deduction. Besides, that 
when the first difficulties are over, the delight 
and sensible advantage it brings, mightily en- 
courages and enlivens the mind in reading, 
which without this is very improperly called 
study. 

{5 21. Intermediate principles. 

As an help to this, I think it may be proposed, 
that, for the saving the long progression of 
the thoughts to remote and first principles in 
every case, the mind should provide its sever- 
al stages ; that is to say, intermediate princi- 
ples, which it might have recourse to in the 
examining those positions that come in its 
way. These, though they are not self-evi- 
dent principles, yet if they have been made 
out from them by a wary and unquestionable 
deduction, may be depended on as certain 
and infallible truths, and serve as unquestion- 
able truths to prove other points depending on 
them by a nearer and shorter view than re- 
mole and general maxims. These may serve 
as land-marks to show what lies in the direct 
way of truth, or is quite besides it. And thus 
mathematicians do, who do not in every new 
problem run it back to the first axioms, 
through all the whole train of intermediate 

G 



62 OF THE CONDUCT 

propositions. Certain theorems, that they 
have settled to themselves upon sure demon- 
stration, serve to resolve to them multitudes 
of propositions which depend on them, and 
are as firmly made out from thence, as if the 
mind went afresh over every link of the whole 
chain that ties them to first self-evident prin- 
ciples. Only in other sciences great care is 
to be taken that they establish those interme- 
diate principles with as much caution, exact- 
ness, and indiiferency, as mathematicians use 
in the settling any of their great theorems. 
When this is not done, but men take up the 
principles in this or that science upon credit, 
inclination, interest, &x. in haste, without due 
examination, and most unquestionable proof, 
they lay a trap for themselves, and as much as 
in them lies captivate their understandings to 
mistake, falsehood, and error. 

§ 22. Partiality. 

As there is a partiality to opinions, which, as 
we have already observed, is apt to mislead 
the understanding ; so there is often a partial- 
ity to studies, which is prejudicial also to 
knowledge and improvement. Those sciences, 
which men are particularly versed in, they are 
apt to value and extol, as if that part of know- 
ledge, which every one has acquainted him- 
self with, were that alone which was worth 



OP THE UNDERSTANDING. 63 

the having, and all the rest were idle, and 
empty amusements, comparatively of no use 
or importance. This is the effect of ignorance 
and not knowledge, the being vainly puffed up 
with a flatulency, arising from a weak and 
narrow comprehension. It is not amiss that 
every one should relish the science that he has 
made his pec Jiar study : a view of its beau- 
ties, and a sense of its usefulness, carries a 
man on with the more delight and warmth in 
the pursuit and improvement of it. But the 
contempt of all other knowledge, as if it were 
nothing in comparison of law or physic, of as- 
tronomy or chemistry, or perhaps some yet 
meaner part of knowledge, wherein I have 
got some smattering, or am somewhat advan- 
ced, is not only the mark of a vain or little 
mind ; but does this prejudice in the conduct 
of the understanding, that it coops it up with- 
in narrow bounds, and hinders it from looking 
abroad into other provinces of the intellectu- 
al world, more beautiful possibly, and more 
fruitful than that which it had till then labour- 
ed in ; wherein it might find, besides new 
knowledge, ways or hints whereby it might be 
enabled the better to cultivate its own. 

§ 23. Theology. 

There is indeed one science (as they are now 
distinguished) incomparably above all the rest, 



64 OF THE CONDUCT 

where it is not by corruption narrowed into a 
trade of faction, for mean or ill ends, and 
secular interests ; I mean theology, which, 
containing the knowledge of God and his 
creatures, our duty to him and our fellow- 
creatures and a view of our present and fu- 
ture state, is the comprehension of all other 
knowledge directed to its true end ; i. e. the 
honour and veneration of the Creator, and 
the happiness of mankind. This is that noble 
study which is every man's duty, and every 
one that can be called a rational creature is 
capable of. The works of nature, and the 
words of revelation, display it to mankind in 
characters so large and visible, that those who 
are not quite blind may in them read, and see 
the first principles and most necessary parts 
of it ; and from thence, as they have time 
and industry, may be enabled to go on to the 
more abstruse parts of it, and penetrate into 
those infinite depths filled with the treasures 
of wisdom and knowledge. This is that sci- 
ence which would truly enlarge men's minds, 
were it studied, or permitted to be studied ev- 
ery where, with that freedom, love of truth 
and charity which it teaches, and were not 
made, contrary to its nature, the occasion of 
strife, faction, malignity, and narrow imposi- 
tions. I shall say no more here of this, but 
that it is undoubtedly a wrong use of my un- 
derstanding, to make it the rule and measure 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 65 

of another man's ; a use which it is neither 
fit for, nor capable of. 

§ 24. Partiality. 

This partiality, where it is not permitted an 
authority to render all other studies insignifi- 
cant or contemptible, is often indulged so far 
as to be xelied upon, and made use of in other 
parts of knowledge, to which it does not at all 
belong, and wherewith it has no manner of 
affinity. Some men have so used their heads 
to mathematical figures, that, giving a prefer- 
ence to the methods of that science, they in- 
troduce lines and diagrams into their study of 
divinity, or politic inquiries, as if nothing 
could be known without them ; and others, 
accustomed to retired speculations, run natu- 
ral philosophy into metaphysical notions, ami 
the abstract generalities of logic ; and how 
often may one meet with religion and morali- 
ty treated of in the terms of the laboratory, 
and thought to be improved by the methods 
and notions o£ chemistry ? But he, that will 
take care of the conduct of his understand- 
ing to direct it right to the knowledge of 
things, must avoid those undue mixtures, and 
not by a fondness for what he has found useful 
and necessary in one, transfer it to another 
science, where it serves only to perplex and 
confound the understanding. It is a certain 

G Z 



66 OF THE CONDUCT 

truth, that res nolunt male administrari ; it is 
no less certain res nolunt male intelligi. Things 
themselves are to be considered as they are 
in themselves, and then they will show as in 
what way they are to be understood. For to 
have right conceptions about them, we must 
bring our understandings to the inflexible na- 
tures, and unalterable relations of things, and 
not endeavour to bring things to any precon- 
ceived notions of our own. 

There is another partiality very commonly 
observable in men of study, no less prejudi- 
cial nor ridiculous than the formei ; and that 
is a fantastical and wild-attributing all know- 
ledge to the ancients alone, or to the moderns 
This raving upon antiquity in matter of poe- 
try, Horace has wittily described and exposed 
in one of his satires. The same sort of mad- 
ness may be found in reference to all the 
other sciences. Some will not admit an opin- 
ion not authorised by men of old, who were 
then all giants in knowledge. Nothing is to 
be put into the treasury of truth or knowledge, 
which has not the stamp of Greece or Rome 
upon it ; and, since their days, will scarce al- 
low that men have been able to see, think, or 
write. Others, with a like extravagancy, 
contemn all that the ancients have left us, and 
being taken with the modern inventions and 
discoveries, lay by all that went before, as if 
whatever is called old must have the decay of 



or THE UNDERSTANDING. 67 

time upon it, and truth too were liable to 
mould and rottenness. Men, I think, have 
been much the same for natural endowments 
in all times. Fashion, discipline, and educa- 
tion, have put eminent differences in the ages 
of several countries, and made one generation 
much differ from another in arts and sciences: 
but truth is always the same ; time alters it 
not, nor is it the better or worse for being of 
ancient or modern tradition. Many were 
eminent in former ages of the world for their 
discovery and delivery of it ; but though the 
knowledge they have left us be worth our 
study, yet they exhausted not all its treasure; 
they left a great deal for the industry and 
sagacity of after-ages, and so shall we. That 
was once new to them which any one now 
receives with veneration for its antiquity, nor 
was it the worse for appearing as a novelty ; 
and that which is now embraced for its new- 
ness will to posterity be old, but not thereby 
be less true or less genuine. There is no occa- 
sion, on this account, to oppose the ancients 
and the moderns to one another, or to be 
squeamish on either side. He that wisely 
conducts his mind in the pursuit of knowledge 
will gather what lights, and get what helps he 
can, from either of them, from whom they are 
best to be had, without adoring the errors, or 
rejecting the truths, which he may find ming- 
led in them 



68 OP THE CONDUCT 

Another partiality may be observed, in some 
to vulgar, in others to heterodox tenets: some 
are apt to conclude that what is the common 
opinion cannot but be true ; so many men's 
eyes they think cannot but see right ; so 
many men's understandings of all sorts can- 
not be deceived ; and, therefore, will net ven- 
ture to look beyond the received notions of 
the place and age, nor have so presumptuous 
a thought as to be wiser than their neighbours. 
They are content to go with the crowd, and 
so go easily, which they think is going right, 
or at least serves them as well. But, however 
vox populi vox Dei has prevailed as a maxim, 
yet I do not remember where ever God de- 
livered his oracles by the multitude, or nature 
truths by the herd. On the other side, some 
fly all common opinions as either false or 
frivolous. The title of many-headed beast is 
a sufficient reason to them to conclude that 
no truths of weight or consequence can be 
lodged there. Vulgar opinions are suited to 
vulgar capacities, and adapted to the ends of 
those that govern. He that will know the 
truth of things must leave the common and 
beaten track, which none but weak and ser- 
vile minds are satisfied to trudge along con- 
tinually in. Such nice palates relish nothing 
but strange notions quite out of the way : 
whatever is commonly received, has the mark 
of the beast on it ; and they think it a lessen- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 69 

ing to them to hearken to it, or receive it ; 
their mind runs only after paradoxes ; these 
they seek, these they embrace, these alone 
they vent ; and so, as they think, distinguish 
themselves from the vulgar. But common or 
uncommon are not the marks to distinguish 
truth or falsehood, and therefore should not 
be any bias to us in our inquiries. We should 
not judge of things by men's opinions, but of 
opinions by things. The multitude reason 
but ill, and therefore may be well suspected, 
and cannot be relied on, nor should be follow- 
ed as a sure guide ; but philosophers, who 
have quitted the orthodoxy of the community, 
and the popular doctrines of their countries, 
have fallen into as extravagant and as absurd 
opinions as ever common reception counten- 
anced. It would be madness to refuse to 
breathe the common air, or quench one's 
thirst with water, because the rabble use them 
to these purposes : and if there are conven- 
iences of life which common use reaches not, 
it is not reason to reject them because they 
are not grown into the ordinary fashion of the 
country, and every villager doth not know 
them. 

Truth, whether in or out of fashion, is the 
measure of knowledge, and the business of 
the understanding ; whatsoever is besides 
that, however authorized by consent, or re- 



TO OF THE CONDUCT 

commended by rarity, is nothing but igno- 
rance, or something worse. 

Another sort of partiality there is, whereby 
men impose upon themselves, and by it make 
their reading little useful to themselves : I 
mean the making use of the opinions of wri- 
ters, and laying stress upon their authorities, 
wherever they find them to favour their own 
opinions. 

There is nothing almost has done more 
harm to men dedicated to letters than giving 
the name of study to reading, and making a 
man of great reading to be the same with a 
man of great knowledge, or at least to be 
a title of honour. All that can be recorded 
in writing are only facts or reasonings. Facts 
are of three sorts ; 

1. Merely of natural agents, observable in 
the ordinary operations of bodies one upon 
another, whether in the visible course of 
things left to themselves, or in experiments 
made by men, applying agents and patients 
to one another, after a peculiar and artificial 
manner. 

2. Of voluntary agents, more especially 
the actions of men in society, which makes 
civil and moral history. 

3. Of opinions. 

In these three consists, as it seems to me, 
that which commonly has the name of learn- 
ing ; to which perhaps some may add a dis~ 



OP THE UNDERSTANDING. 71 

tinct head of critical writings, which indeed 
at bottom is nothing but matter of fact ; and 
resolves itself into this, that such a man, or 
set of men, used such a word, or phrase, in 
such a sense i. e. that they made such sounds 
the marks of such ideas. 

Under reasonings I comprehend all the .dis- 
coveries of general truths made by human 
reason, whether found by intuition, demon- 
stration or probable deductions. And this is 
that which is, if not alone knowledge, (be- 
cause the truth or probability of particular 
propositions may be known too) yet is, as 
may be supposed, most properly, the busi- 
ness of those who pretend to improve their 
understandings, and make themselves know- 
ing by reading. 

Books and reading are looked upon to be 
the great helps of the understanding, and in- 
struments of knowledge, as it must be allowed 
that they are ; and yet I beg leave to ques- 
tion whether these do not prove a hinderance 
to many, and keep several bookish men from 
attaining to solid and true knowledge. This, I 
think, I may be permitted to say, that there is 
no part wherein the understanding needs a more 
careful and wary conduct than in the use of 
books ; without which they will prove rather 
innocent amusements than profitable employ- 
ments of our time, and bring but small ad 
ditions to our knowledge. 



72 OF THE CONDUCT 

There is not seldom to be found, even 
among those who aim at knowledge, who with 
an unwearied industry employ their whole time 
in books, who scarce allow themselves time to 
eat or sleep, but read, and read, and read on, 
yet make no great advances in real knowl- 
edge, though there be no defect in their 
intellectual faculties, to which their little pro- 
gress can be imputed. The mistake here is, 
that it is usually supposed that by reading, the 
author's knowledge is transfused into the 
readers's understanding ; and so it is, but not 
hy bare reading, but by reading and under- 
standing what he writ. Whereby I mean, 
not barely comprehending what is affirmed or 
denied in each proposition (though that great 
readers do not always think themselves con- 
cerned precisely to do,) but to see and follow 
the train of reasonings, observe the streLgth 
and clearness of their connexion, and examine 
upon what they bottom. Without this a man 
may read the discourses of a very rational 
author, writ in a language, and in propositions, 
that he very well understands, and jet ac- 
quire not one jot of his knowledge ; which 
consisting only in the perceived, certain, or 
probable connexion of the ideas made use of 
in his reasonings, the reader's knowledge is 
no farther increased than he perceives that ; 
so much as he sees of this connexion^ so much 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 73 

he knows of the truth or probability of that 
author's opinions. 

All that he relies on without this perception, 
he takes upon trust upon the author's credit, 
without any knowledge of it at all. This 
makes me not at all wonder to see some men 
so abound in citations, and build so much upon 
authorities, it beino* the sole foundation on 
which they bottom most of their own tenets ; 
so that, in effect, they have but a second- 
hand, or implicit knowledge, i. e. are in the 
right if such an one, from whom they borrow- 
ed it, were in the right in that opinion which 
they took from him ; w r hich indeed is no know- 
ledge at all. Writers of this or former ages may 
be good witnesses of matters of fact which they 
deliver, which we may do well to take upon 
their authority ; but their credit can go no 
farther than this, it cannot at all affect the 
truth and falsehood of opinions, which have 
no other sort of trial but reason and proof, 
which they themselves made use of to make 
themselves knowing, and so must others too 
that will partake in their knowledge. Indeed 
it is an advantage that they have been at the 
pains to find out the proofs, and lay them in 
that order that may show the truth or proba- 
bility of their conclusions ; and for this we 
owe them great acknowledgements for saving 
us the pains in searching those proofs which 
they have collected for us, and which possi- 



74 . OP THE CONDUCT 

bly, after ail our pains, we might not have 
found, nor been able to have set them in so 
good a light as that which they left them us 
in. — Upon this account we are mightily be- 
holden to judicious writers of all ages, for 
those discoveries and discourses they have left 
behind them for our instruction, if vv e know how 
to make a right use of them ; which is not to 
rur them over in a hasty perusal, and perhaps 
lodge their opinions, or some remarkable pas- 
sages in our memories ; but to enter into their 
reasonings, examine their proofs, and then 
judge of the truth or falsehood, probability or 
improbability of what they advance ; not by 
any opinion we have entertained of the au- 
thor, but by the evidence he produces, and 
the conviction he affords us, drawn from things 
tnemselves. Knowing is seeing, and if it be 
so, it is madness to persuade ourselves that we 
do so by another man's eyes, let him use ever 
so many words to tell us, that what he asserts 
is very visible. Till we ourselves see it with 
our own eyes, and perceive it by our own un- 
derstandings, we are as much in the dark, and 
as void of knowledge as before, let us believe 
any learned author as much as we will. 

Euclid and Archimedes are allowed to be 
knowing, and to have demonstrated what they 
say ; and yet whoever shall read over their 
writings without perceiving the connexion of 
their proofs^ and seeing what they show, though 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 75 

he may understand all their words, yet he is 
not the more knowing : he may believe in- 
deed, but does not know what they say, and 
so is not advanced one jot in mathematical 
knowledge by all his reading of those approv- 
ed mathematicians. 



§ 25. Haste. 

The eagerness and strong bent of the mind af- 
ter knowledge, if not warily regulated, is of- 
ten an hindrance to it. It still presses into 
farther discoveries and new objects, and catch- 
es at the variety of knowledge, and therefore 
often stays not long enough on Avhat is before 
it, to look into it as it should, for haste to pur- 
sue what is yet out of sight. He that rides 
post through a country, may be able, from the 
transient view, to tell how in general the parts 
lie, and may be able to give some loose de- 
scription of here a mountain, and there a 
plain, here a morass, and there a river ; wood- 
land in one part, and savannahs in another. 
Such superficial ideas and observations as 
these he may collect in galloping over it : but 
the more useful observations of the soil, 
plants, animals, and inhabitants, with their 
several sorts and properties, mifet necessarily 
escape him ; and it is seldom men ever dis- 
cover the rich mines, without some digging. 



76 OF THE CONDUCT 

Nature commonly lodges her treasures and 
jewels in rocky ground. If the matter be 
knotty, and the sense lies deep, the mind must 
stop and buckle to it, and stick upon it with 
labour and thought, and close contemplation, 
and not leave it till it has mastered the diffi- 
culty, and got possession of truth. But here 
care must be taken to avoid the other extreme: 
a man must not stick at every useless nicety, 
and expect mysteries of science in every tri- 
vial question or scruple that he may raise. 
He that will stand to pick up and examine ev- 
ery pebble that comes in his way, is as unlike- 
ly to return enriched and laden with jewels, as 
the other that travelled full speed. Truths 
are not the better nor the worse for their ob- 
viousness or difficulty, but their value is to be 
measured by their usefulness and tendency. 
Insignificant observations should not take up 
any of our minutes, and those that enlarge our 
view, and give light towards farther and use- 
ful discoveries, should not be neglected, though 
they stop our course, and spend some of our 
time in a fixed attention 

There is another haste that does often^ and 
will mislead the mind if it be left to itself and 
its own conduct. The understanding is natu- 
rally forward, not only to learn its knowledge 
by variety (which makes it skip over one to 
get speedily to another part of knowledge) 
but also eager to enlarge its views, by running 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 77 

too fast into general observations and conclu- 
sions, without a due examination of particu- 
lars enough whereon to found those general 
axioms. This seems to enlarge their stock, 
but it is of fancies, not realities ; such the- 
ories built upon narrow foundations stand but 
weakly, and, if they fall not of themselves, 
are at least very hardly to be supported 
against the assaults of opposition. — And thus 
men being too hasty to erect to themselves 
general notions and ill-grounded theories, find 
themselves deceived in their stock of know- 
ledge, when they come to examine their hastily 
assumed maxims themselves,ortohave therrfrat- 
tacked by others. General observations drawn 
from particulars, are the jewels of knowledge, 
comprehending great store m a little room ; 
but they are therefore to be made with the 
greater care and caution, lest if we take coun- 
terfeit for true, our loss and shame be the 
greater when our stock comes to a severe 
scrutiny. One or two particulars may suggest 
hints of inquiry, and they do well to take 
those hints ; but if they turn them into con- 
clusions, and make them presently general 
rules, they are forward indeed, but it is only 
to impose on themselves by propositions as- 
sumed for truths without sufficient warrant 
To make such observations, is, as has been 
already remarked, to make the head a maga- 
zine of materials, which can hardly oe called 
h 2 



78 OF THE CONDUCT 

knowledge, or at least it is but like a collec- 
tion of lumber not reduced to use or order ; 
and he that makes every thing an observation, 
has the same useless plenty, and much more 
falsehood mixed with it. The extremes on 
both sides are to be avoided, and he will be 
able to give the best account of his studies 
who keeps his understanding in the right mean 
between them. 

§26. udnticipaiion. 

Whether it be a love of that which brings the 
first light and information to their minds, and 
want of vigour and industry to inquire ; or else 
that men content themselves with any appear- 
ance of knowledge, right or wrong ; which, 
when they have once got, they will hold fast : 
this is visible, that many men give themselves 
up to the first anticipations of their minds, and 
are very tenacious of the opinions that first 
possess them ; they are often as fond of their 
first conceptions as of their first born, and will 
by no means recede from the judgment they 
have once made, or any conjecture or conceit 
which they have once entertained. This is a 
fault in the conduct of the understanding, since 
this firmness, or rather stiffness of the mind, 
is not from an adherence to truth, but a sub- 
mission to prejudice. It is an unreasonable 
homage paid to prepossession, whereby we 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 19 

show a reverence not to (what we pretend to 
seek) truth, but what by hap-hazard we chance 
to light on, be it what it will. This is visibly 
a preposterous use of our faculties, and is a 
downright prostituting of the mind to resigp it 
thus, and put it under the power of the first 
comer. This can never be allowed, or ought 
to be followed as a right way to knowledge, 
till the understanding ('whose business it is to 
conform itself to what it finds in the objects 
without) can by its own opinionatry change 
that, and make the unalterable nature of things 
comply with its own hasty determinations, 
which will never be. Whatever we fancy, 
things keep their course ; and the habitudes, 
correspondences, and relations, keep the same 
to one another. 

§ 27. Resignation. 

Contrary to these, but by a like dangerous 
excess on the other side, are those who always 
resign their judgment to the last man they 
heard or read. Truth never sinks into these 
men's minds, nor gives any tincture to them, 
but cameleon-like, they take the colour of 
what is laid before them, and as soon lose and 
resign it to the next that happens to come in 
their way. The order wherein opinions are 
proposed or received by us, is no rule of their 
rectitude, nor ought to be a cause of their pre- 



80 OP THE CONDUCT 

ference. First or last in this case, is the ef- 
fect of chance, and not the measure of truth 
or falsehood. This every one must confess, 
and therefore should, in the pursuit of truth, 
keep his mind free from the influence of any 
such accidents. A man may as reasonably 
draw cuts for his tenets, regulate his persuasion 
the cast of a die, as take it up for its novelty, 
or retain it because it had his first assent, and 
he was never of another mind. Well-weigh- 
ed reasons are to determine the judgment ; 
thos-e the mind should be always ready to 
hearken and submit to, and by their testimo- 
ny and suffrage, entertain or reject any tenet 
indifferently, whether it be a perfect stranger, 
or an old acquaintance. 

§ 28. Practice. 

Though the faculties of the mind are improv- 
ed by exercise, yet they must not be put to a 
stress beyond their strength. Quid valeant 
humeri, quid ferre recusent, must be made the 
measure of every one's understanding who has 
a desire not only to perform well, but to keep 
up the vigour of his faculties, and not to basdk 
his understanding by what is too hard for it. 
The mind, by being engaged in a task beyond 
its strength, like the body, strained by lifting 
at a weight too heavy, has often its force 
broken, and thereby gets an unaptness or an 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 81 

aversion to any vigorous attempt ever after 
A sinew cracked seldom recovers its former 
strength, or at least the tenderness of the 
sprain remains a good while after, and the 
memory of it longer, and leaves a lasting cau- 
tion in the man not to put the part quickly 
again to any robust employment. So it fares 
in the mind once jaded by an attempt above 
its power ; it either is disabled for the future, 
or else checks at any vigorous undertaking 
ever after, at least is very hardly brought to 
exert its force again on any subject that re- 
quires thought and meditation. The under- 
standing should be brought to the difficult and 
knotty parts of knowledge, that try the 
strength of thought, and a full bent of the 
mind by insensible degrees, and in such a 
gradual proceeding nothing is too hard for it. 
Nor let it be objected, that such a slow pro- 
gress will never reach the extent of some sci- 
ences. — It is not to be imagined how far con- 
stancy will carry a man ; however, it is better 
walking slowly in a rugged way, than to break 
a leg and be a cripple. He that begins with 
the calf may carry the ox ; but he that will at 
first go to take up an ox, may so disable him- 
self, as not be able to lift up a calf after that. 
When the mind, by insensible degrees, has 
brought itself to attention and close thinking, 
it will be able to cope with difficulties, and 
master them without any prejudice to itself, 



82 OF TH£ CONDUCT 

and then it may go on roundly. Every ab- 
struse problem, every intricate question, will 
not baffle, discourage, or break it. But 
though putting the mind unprepared upon an 
unusual stress, that may discourage or damp 
it for the future, ought to be avoided ; yet 
this must not run it, by an over-great shyness 
of difficulties, into a lazy sauntering about or- 
dinary and obvious things, that demand no 
thought or application. This debases and en- 
ervates the understanding, makes it weak and 
unfit for labour. This is a sort of hovering 
about the surface of things, without any in- 
sight into them or penetration ; and when the 
mind has been cnoe habituated to this laxy re- 
cumbency and satisfaction on the obvious sur- 
face of things, it is in danger to rest satisfied 
there, and go no deeper, since it cannot do it 
without pains and digging. He that has for 
some time accustomed himself to take up with 
what easily offers itself at first view, has rea- 
son to fear he shall never reconcile himself to 
the fatigue of turning and tumbling of things in 
his mind, to discover their more retired and 
more valuable secrets. 

It is not strange that methods of learning, 
which scholars have been accustomed to in 
their beginning and entrance upon the sci- 
ences, should influence them all their lives, 
and be settled in their minds by an over-ru- 
ling reverence, especially if they be such as 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 83 

universal use has established. Learners must 
at first be believers, and their master's rules 
having been once made axioms to them, it is 
no wonder they should keep that dignity, and 
by the authority they have once got, mislead 
those who think it sufficient to excuse them^ 
if they go out of their way in a well-beaten 
track. 

^29. Words. 

I have copiously enough spoken of the abuse 
of words in another place, and therefore shall 
upon this reflection, that the sciences are full 
of them, warn those that would conduct their 
understandings right not to take any term ? 
howsoever authorized by the language of the 
schools, to stand for any thing till they have 
an idea of it. A word may be of frequent 
use, and great credit, with several authors, 
and be by them made use of as if it stood 
for some real being ; but yet, if he that reads 
cannot frame arty distinct idea uf that being, 
it is certainly to him a mere empty sound 
without a meaning; and he learns no more 
by all that is said of it, or attributed to it, 
than if it were affirmed only of that bare 
empty sound. They who would advance in 
knowledge, and not deceive and swell them- 
selves ^ith a little articulated air, should lay 
down this as a fundamental rule, not to take 



84 OF THE CONDUCT 

words for things, nor suppose that names in 
books signify real entities in nature, till they 
can frame clear and distinct ideas of those en- 
tities. It will not perhaps be allowed, if I 
should set down "substantial forms" and "in- 
tentional species," as such that may justly be 
suspected to be of this kind of insignificant 
terms : but this I am sure, to one that can 
form no determined ideas of what they stand 
for, they signify nothing at all ; and all that 
he thinks he knows about them is to him so 
much knowledge about nothing, and amounts 
at most but to a learned ignorance. It is 
not without ail reason supposed that there are 
many such empty terms to be found in some 
learned writers, to which they had recourse 
to etch out their systems, where their under- 
standings could not furnish them with concep- 
tions from things. But yet I believe the sup- 
posing of some realities in nature, answering 
those and the like words, have much perplex- 
ed some, and quite misled others in the study 
of nature. That which in any discourse sig 
nifies, " I know not what," should be consi- 
dered " I know not when." Where men 
have any conceptions, they can, if they are 
ever so abstruse or abstracted, explain them, 
and the terms they use for them. For our 
conceptions being nothing but ideas, which 
are all made up of simple ones, if they can- 
not give us the ideas their words stand for, it 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 85 

is plain they have none. To what purpose can 
it be to hunt after his conceptions who has 
none, or none distinct ? He that knew not 
what he himself meant by a learned term 
cannot make us know any thing by his use of 
it, let us beat our heads about it ever so 
long. Whether we are able to comprehend 
all the operations of nature, and the manners 
of them, it matters not to inquire ; but this is 
certain, that we can comprehend no more of 
them than we can distinctly conceive ; and 
therefore to obtrude terms where we have 
no distinct conceptions, as if they did con- 
tain or rather conceal something, is but an 
artifice of learned vanity to cover a defect in 
a hypothesis or our understandings. Words 
are not made to conceal, but to declare 
and show something ; where they are by 
those, who pretend to instruct, otherwise used, 
they conceal indeed something ; but that 
which they conceal is nothing but the igno- 
rauce, error, or sophistry of the taJker ; for 
there is, in truth, nothing else under them. 

§ 30. Wandering. 

That there is a constant succession and flux 
of ideas in our minds, I have observed in the 
former part of this Essay ; and every one 
may take notice of it in himself. This, I 
suppose, may deserve some part of our care 



86 OF THE CONDUCT 

in the conduct of our understandings ; and 
I think it may be of great advantage, if we 
can by use get that power over our minds, as 
to be able to direct that train of ideas, that 
so, since there will new ones perpetually come 
into our thoughts by a constant succession, 
we may be able by choice so to direct them, 
that none may come in view but such as are 
pertinent to our present inquiry, and in such 
order as may be most useful to the discovery 
we are upon ; or at least, if some foreign and 
unsought ideas will offer themselves, that yet we 
might be able to reject them, and keep them 
from taking off our minds from its present pur- 
suit, and hinder them from running away with 
our thoughts quite from the subject in hand. 
This is not, 1 suspect, so easy to be done as 
perhaps may be imagined ; and yet, for aught 
I know, this may be, if not the chief, yet one 
of the great differences that carry some men 
in their reasoning so far beyond others, where 
they seem to be naturally of equal parts. A 
proper and effectual remedy for this wander- 
ing of thoughts I would be glad to find. He 
thni shall propose such an one, would do great 
service to the studious and contemplative 
part of mankind, and perhaps help unthink- 
ing men to become thinking. I must ac- 
knowledge that hitherto I have discovered no 
other way to keep our thoughts close to their 
business, but the endeavouring as much as we 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 87 

can, and by frequent attention and applica- 
tion, getting the habit of attention and appli- 
cation. He that will observe children will find, 
that even when they endeavour their utmost, 
they cannot keep their minds from straggling. 
The way to cure it, I am satisfied, is not 
angry chiding or beating, for that presently 
fills their heads with all the ideas that fear, 
dread, or confusion can offer to them. To bring 
back gently their wandering thoughts, by 
leading them into the path, and going before 
them in the train they should pursue, without 
any rebuke, or so much as taking notice 
(where it can be avoided) of their roving, I 
suppose w r ould sooner reconcile and inure 
them to attention than all those rougher me- 
thods which more distract their thought, aud 5 
hindering the application they would promote^ 
introduce a contrary habit. 

§31. Distinction, 

Distinction and division are (if I mistake 
not the import of the words) very different 
things ; the one being the perception of a 
difference that nature has placed in things ; 
the other, our making a division where there 
is yet none ; at least, if I may be permitted 
to consider them in this sense, I think I may 
say of them that one of them is the most 
necessary and conducive to true knowledge 



88 OF THE CONDUCT 

that can be ; the other, when too much made 
use of, serves only to puzzle and confound 
the understanding. To observe every the 
least difference that is in things argues a quick 
and clear sight; and this keeps the understand- 
ing steady, and right in its way to knowledge. 
But though it be useful to discern every 
variety that is to be found in nature, yet it is 
not convenient to consider every difference 
that is in things, and divide them into dis- 
tinct classes under every such difference. 
This will run us, if followed, into particulars 
(for every individual has something that 
differences it from another,) and we shall 
be able to establish no general truths, or 
else at least shall be apt to perplex the mind 
about them. The collection of several 
things into several classes, gives the mind more 
general and larger views ; but we must take 
care to unite them only in that, and so far as 
they do agree ; for so far they may be uni- 
ted under the consideration : for entity itself, 
that comprehends all things, as general as it 
is, may afford us clear and rational concep- 
tions. If we would weigh and keep in our 
minds what it is we are considering, that would 
best instruct us when we should, or should not 
branch into farther distinctions, which are to 
be taken only from a due contemplation of 
things ; to which there is nothing more oppo- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 89 

site than the art of verbal distinctions, made 
at pleasure in learned and arbitrarily invented 
terms, to be applied at a venture, without 
comprehending or conveying any distinct no- 
tions, and so altogether fitted to artificial talk, 
or empty noise in dispute, without any clear- 
ing of difficulties, or advance in knowledge, 
Whatsoever subject we examine and would 
get knowledge in, we should, I think, make 
as general and as large as it will bear ; nor 
can there be any danger of this, if the idea of 
it be settled and determined : for if that be so, 
we shall easily distinguish it from any other 
idea, though comprehended under the same 
name. For it is to fence against the entan- 
glements of equivocal words, and the great 
art of sophistry which lies in them, that dis- 
tinctions have been multiplied, and their use 
thought so necessary. But had every distinct 
abstract idea a distinct known name, there 
would be little need of these multiplied scho- 
lastic distinctions, though there would be nev- 
ertheless as much need still of the mind's ob- 
serving the differences that are in things, and 
discriminating them thereby one from anoth- 
er. It is not, therefore, the right way to 
knowledge, to hunt after, and fill the head 
with abundance of artificial and scholastic 
distinctions, wherewith learned men's writings 
are often filled ; we sometimes find what they 
treat of so divided and subdivided, that the 
i 2 



BO OF THE CONDUCT 

mind of the most attentive reader loses the 
sight of it, as it is more than probable the 
writer himself did ; for in thirds crumbled in- 
to dust, it is in vain to affect or pretend order> 
or expect clearness. To avoid confusion by 
too few or too many divisions, is a great skill 
in thinking as well as writing, which is but the 
copying our thoughts ; but what are the boun- 
daries of the mean between the two vicious 
excesses on both hands, I think is hard to set 
down in words : clear and distinct ideas is all 
that I yet know able to regulate it. But as to 
verbal distinctions received and applied to 
common terms, i. e. equivocal words ; they 
are more properly, I think, the business of 
criticisms and dictionaries than of real know- 
ledge and philosophy, since they, for the most 
part, explain the meaning of words, and give 
us their several significations. The dexterous 
management of terms, and being able to fend 
and prove with them, I know has, and does pass 
in the world for a great part of learning ; but 
it is learning distinct from knowledge ; for 
knowledge consists only in perceiving the hab- 
itudes and relations of ideas one to another, 
which is done without words ; the interven- 
tion of a sound helps nothing to it. And hence 
we see that there is least use of distinctions 
where there is most knowledge ; I mean \ti 
mathematics, where men have determined 
ideas without known names to them ; and so 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 91 

there being no room for equivocations, there 
is no need of distinctions. In arguing, the 
opponent uses as comprehensive and equivocal 
terms as he can to involve his adversary in 
the doubtfulness of his expressions : this is ex- 
pected, and therefore the answer on his side 
makes it his play to distinguish as much as he 
can, and thinks he can never do it too much ; 
nor can he indeed in that way wherein victo- 
ry may be had without truth and without 
knowledge. This seems to me to be the art 
of disputing. Use your words as captiously 
as you can in your arguing on one side, and 
apply distinctions as much as you can on the 
other side to every term, to nonplus your op- 
ponent ; so that in this sort of scholarship, 
there being no bounds set to distinguishing, 
some men have thought all acuteness to have 
Iain in it : and therefore in all they have read 
or thought on, their great business has been 
to amuse themselves with distinctions, and 
multiply to themselves divisions, at least, more 
than the nature of the thing required. There 
seems to me, as I said, to be no other rule for 
this, but a due and right consideration of things 
as they are in themselves. He that has set- 
tled in his mind determined ideas, with names 
affixed to them, will be able both to discern 
their differences one from another, which 
is really distinguishing ; and, where the penu- 
ry of words affords not terms answering every 



92 OF THE CONDUCT 

distinct idea, will be able to apply proper dis- 
tinguishing terms to the comprehensive and 
equivocal names he is forced to make use of. 
This is all the need I know of distinguishing 
terms ; and in such verbal distinctions, each 
term of the distinction, joined to that whose 
signification it distinguishes, is but a distinct 
name for a distinct idea. Where they are so, 
and men have clear und distinct conceptions 
that answer their verbal distinctions, they are 
right, and are pertinent as far as they serve 
to clear any thing in the subject under con- 
sideration. And this is that which seems to 
me the proper and only measure of distinc- 
tions and divisions ; which he that will con- 
duct his understanding right, must not look 
for in the acuteness of invention, nor the au- 
thority of writers, but will find only in the 
consideration of things themselves, whether he 
is led into it by his own meditations, or the 
information of books. 

An aptness to jumble things together, where- 
in can be found any likeness, is a fault in the 
understanding on the other side, which will 
not fail to mislead it, and by thus lumping of 
things, hinder the mind from distinct and ac- 
curate conceptions of them. 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 93 

§ 32. Similes. 

To which let me here add another near of kin 
to this, at least in name, and that is letting the 
mind upon the suggestion of any new notion, 
run immediately after similes to make it the 
clearer to itself ; which, though it may be a 
good way, and useful in the explaining our 
thoughts to others ; yet it is by no means a 
right method to settle true notions of any 
thing in ourselves, because similes always fail 
in some part, and come short of that exact- 
ness w r hich our conceptions should have to 
things, if we would think aright. This in- 
deed makes men plausible talkers ; for those 
are always most acceptable in discourse who 
have the w r ay to let their thoughts into other 
men's minds with the greatest ease and facili- 
ty ; whether those thoughts are well formed 
and correspond with things, matters not ; few 
men care to be instructed but at an easy rate. 
They, who in their discourse strike the fancy, 
and take the hearer's conceptions along with 
them as fast as their words flow, are the ap- 
plauded talkers, and go for the only men of 
clear thoughts. Nothing contributes so much 
to this as similes, whereby men think they 
themselves understand better, because they 
are the better understood. But it is one thing 
to think right, and another thing to know the 



94 OF THE CONDUCT 

right way to lay our thoughts before others 
with advantage and clearness, be they right 
or wrong. Well chosen similes, metaphors, 
and allegories, with method and order, do this 
the best of any thing, because being taken 
from objects already known, and familiar to 
the understanding, they are conceived as fast 
as spoken ; and the correspondence being 
concluded, the thing they are brought to ex- 
plain and elucidate is thought to be under- 
stood too. Thus fancy passes for knowledge, 
and what is prettily said is mistaken for sol- 
id. I say not this to decry metaphor, or 
with design to take away that ornament of 
speech ; my business here is not with rheto- 
ricians and orators, but with philosophers and 
lovers of truth ; to whom T would beg leave 
to give this one rule whereby to try whether, 
in the application of their thoughts to any 
thing for the improvement of their knowledge, 
they do in truth comprehend the matter be- 
fore them really such as it is in itself. The 
way to discover this is to observe, whether in 
the laying it before themselves or others, they 
make use only of borrowed representations 
and ideas foreign to the things which are ap- 
plied to it by way of accommodation, as 
bearing some proportion or imagined likeness 
to the subject under consideration. Figured 
and metaphorical expressions do well to illus- 
trate more abstruse and unfamiliar ideas which 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 95 

the mind is not yet thoroughly accustomed to : 
but then they must be made use of to illus- 
trate ideas that we already have, not to paint 
to us those which we yet have not. Such bor- 
rowed and allusive ideas may follow real and 
solid truth, to set it off wi-en found, but must 
by no means be set in its place, and taken 
for it. If all our search has yet reached no 
farther than simile and metaphor, we may as- 
sure ourselves we rather fancy than know, and 
are not yet penetrated into the inside and re- 
ality of the thing, be it what it will, but con- 
tent ourselves with what our imaginations, not 
things themselves, furnish us with. 

§ 33, Assent. 

In the whole conduct of the understanding, 
there is nothing of more moment than to know 
when and where, and how far to give assent, 
and possibly there is nothing harder. It is very 
easily said and nobody questions it, that giving 
and with-holding our assent, and the degrees 
of it, should be regulated by the evidence 
which things carry with them ; and yet we see 
men are not the better for this rule ; some 
firmly embrace doctrines upon slight grounds, 
some upon no grounds, and some contrary to 
appearance : some admit of certainty, and are 
not to be moved in what they hold : others 
waver in every thing, and there want not 



96 OF THE CONDUCT 

those that reject all as uncertain. What then 
shall a novice, an inquirer, a stranger do in 
the case ? I answer, use his eyes. There is 
a correspondence in things, and agreement and 
disagreement in ideas, discernible in very dif- 
ferent degrees, and there are eyes in men to 
see them if they please, only their eyes may 
be dimmed or dazzled, and the discerning 
sight in them impaired or lost. Interest and 
passion dazzles ; the custom of arguing on 
any side, even against our persuasions, dims 
the understanding, and makes it by degrees 
lose the faculty of discerning clearly between 
truth and falsehood, and so of adhering to the 
right side. —It is not safe to play with error, 
and dress it up to ourselves or others in the 
shape of truth. The mind by degrees loses 
its natural relish of real solid truth, is recon- 
ciled insensibly to any thing that can be dres- 
sed up into any faint appearance of it ; and 
if the fancy be allowed the place of judgment 
at first in sport, it afterwards comes by use to 
usurp it, and what is recommended by this flat- 
terer (that studies but to please) is received for 
good. There are so many ways of fallacy, such 
arts of giving colours, appearances, and resem- 
blances by this court-dresser, the fancy, that 
he who is not wary to admit nothing but truth 
itself, very careful not to make his mind sub- 
servient to anything else, cannot but be caught. 
He that has a mind to believe, has half assent- 



OP THE UNDERSTANDING. 97 

ed already ; and he that, "by often arguing 
against his own sense, imposes falsehood on 
others, is not far from believing himself. This 
takes away the great distance there is betwixt 
truth and falsehood ; it brings them almost to- 
gether, and makes it no great odds, in things 
that approach so near, which you take ; and 
when things are brought to that pass, passion 
or interest, &c. easily and without being per~ 
ceived, determine which shall be the right, 

§ 34. Indifferency. 

I have said above, that we should keep a 
perfect inditferency for all opinions, not wish 
any of them true, or try to make them appear 
so ; but being indifferent, receive and em- 
brace them according as evidence, and that 
alone gives the attestation of truth. They 
that do thusy i. e. keep their minds indifferent 
to opinions, to be determined only by evi- 
dence, will always find the understanding has 
perception enough to distinguish between 
evidence and no evidence, betwixt plain 
and doubtful ; and if they neither give nor re- 
fuse their assent but by that measure, they 
will be safe in the opinions they have. Which 
being perhaps but few, this caution will have 
also this good in it, that it will put them upon 
considering, and teach them the necessity of 
examining more than they do ; without which 

K 



93 OF THE CONDUCT 

the mind is but a receptacle of inconsistencies, 
not the store-house of truths. They that do 
not keep up this indifferency in themselves for 
all but truth, not supposed, but evidenced in 
themselves, put coloured spectacles before 
their eyes, and look on things through false 
glasses, and then think themselves excused in 
following the false appearances which they 
themselves put upon them. I do not expect 
that by this way the assent should in every one 
be proportioned to the grounds and clearness 
wherewith every truth is capable to be made 
out ; or that men should be perfectly kept 
from error : that is more than human nature 
can by any means be advanced to ; I aim at 
no such unattainable privilege ; I am only 
speaking of what they should do, who would 
deal fairly with their own minds, and make a 
right use of their faculties in the pursuit of 
truth ; we fail them a great deal more than 
they fail us. It is mismanagement more than 
want of abilities that men have reason to 
complain of, and which they actually do com- 
plain of in those that differ from them. He 
that by an indifferency for all but truth suf- 
fers not his assent to go faster than his evi- 
dence, nor beyond it, will learn to examine, 
and examine fairly, instead of presuming, and 
nobody will be at a loss, or in danger for want 
of embracing those truths which are necessa- 
ry in his station and circumstances. In any 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 99 

other way but this, all the world are born to 
orthodoxy ; they imbibe at first the allowed 
opinions of their country and party, and so 
never questioning their truth, not one of a 
hundred ever examines. They are applauded 
for presuming they are in the right. He that 
considers, is a foe to orthodoxy, because possi- 
bly he may deviate from some of the received 
doctrines there. And thus men, without any 
industry or acquisition of their own, inherit lo- 
cal truths, (for it is not the same every where) 
and are inured to assent without evidence. 
This influences farther than is thought ; for 
what one of a hundred of the zealous bigots 
in all parties ever examined the tenets he is 
so stiff in, or ever thought it his business or 
duty so to do ? It is suspected of luke-warm- 
ness to suppose it necessary, and a tendency 
to apostacy to go about it. And if a man can 
bring his mind once to be positive and fierce 
for positions whose evidence he has never 
once examined, and that in matters of great- 
est concernment to him ; what shall keep him 
from this short and easy way of being in the 
right in cases of le.s moment ? Thus we are 
taught to clothe our minds as we do our bodies, 
after the fashion in vogue, and it is accounted 
fantasticalness, or something worse, not to do 
so. This custom (which who dares oppose) 
makes the short-sighted bigots, and the warier 
skeptics, as far as it prevails : and those that 



100 OF THE CONDUCT 

break from it are in danger of heresy : for 
taking the whole world, how much of it doth 
truth and orthodoxy possess together ? 
Though it is by the last alone (which has the 
good luck to be every where) that error and 
heresy are judged of : for argument and evi- 
dence signify nothing in the case, and excuse 
nowhere, but are sure to be borne down in all 
societies by the infallible orthodoxy of the 
place. Whether this be the way to truth and 
right assent, let the opinions, that take place 
and prescribe in the several habitable parts of 
the earth, declare. I never saw any reason 
yet why truth might not be trusted on its own 
evidence : I am sure if that be not able to 
support it, there is no fence against error ; and 
then truth and falsehood are but names that 
stand for the same things. Evidence there- 
fore is that by which alone every man is (and 
should be) taught to regulate his assent, who 
is then, and then only, in the right way, when 
he follows it. 

Men deficient in knowledge are usually in 
one of these three states ; either wholly igno- 
rant, or as doubting of some proposition they 
have either embraced formerly or at present 
are inclined to ; or lastly, they do with assu- 
rance hold and profess without ever having ex- 
amined, and being convinced by well-grounded 
arguments. 

The first of these are in the best state of 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 101 

the three, by having their minds yet in their 
perfect freedom and indifferency ; the likelier 
to pursue truth the better, having no bias yet 
clapped on to mislead them 

§,36. 

For ignorance, with an indifferency for truth, 
isnearertoitthan opinion with ungrounded in- 
clination, which is the great source of error ; 
and they are more in danger to go out of the 
way who are marching under the conduct of a 
guide, that it is a hundred to one will mislead 
them, than he that has not yet taken a step, 
and is likelier to be prevailed on to inquire af- 
ter the right way. The last of the three sorts 
are in the worst condition of all ; for if a man 
can be persuaded and fully assured of any 
thing for a truth, without having examined, 
what is there that he may not embrace for 
truth ? and if he has given himself up to be- 
heve a lie, what means is there left to recover 
one who can be assured without examining; ? 
To the other two this I crave leave to say, 
that as he that is ignorant is in the best state of 
the two, so he should pursue truth in a method 
suitable to that state ; i. e. by inquiring di- 
rectly into the nature of the thing itself, with- 
out minding the opinions of others, or troub- 
ling himself with their questions or disputes 
about it 5 but to see what he himself can, sin- 
e2 



102 OF THE CONDUCT 

cerely searching for truth, find out* He that 
proceeds on other principles in his inquiry in- 
to any sciences, though he be resolved to ex- 
amine them and judge of them freely, does yet 
at least put himself on that side, and post him- 
self in a party which he will not quit till he 
be beaten out ; hy which the mind is insensibly 
engaged to make what defence it can^ and so 
is unawares biassed. I do not say but a man 
should embrace some opinion when he has ex- 
amined, else he examines to no purpose ; but 
the surest and safest way is to have no opin- 
ion at all till he has examined, and that with* 
oat any the least regard to the opinions or sys- 
tems of other men about it. For example, 
were it my business to understand physic, 
would not the safe and readier way be to con- 
sult nature herself, and inform myself in the 
history of diseases and their cures, than es- 
pousing the principles of the dogmatists, meth- 
odists, or chymists, to engage in all the dis- 
putes concerning either of those systems, and 
suppose it to be true, till I have tried what 
they can say to beat me out of it ? Or sup- 
posing that Hippocrates, or any other book, 
infallibly contains the whole art of physic, 
would not the direct way be to study, read, 
and consider that book, weigh and compare 
the parts of it to find the truth, rather than 
espouse the doctrines of any party ? who, 
though they acknowledge his authority, have 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 103 

already interpreted and wiredrawn all his text 
to their own sense ; the tincture whereof, 
when I have imbibed, I am more in danger to 
misunderstand his true meaning, than if I had 
come to him with a mind unpreposseosed by 
doctors and commentators of my sect ; whose 
reasonings, interpretation, and language, which 
I have been used to, will of course make all 
chime that way, and make another, and per- 
haps the genuine meaning of the author seem 
harsh, strained, and uncouth to me. For 
words having naturally none of their own, car- 
ry that signification to the hearer that he is 
used to put upon them, whatever be the sense 
of h'm that uses them. This, I think, is visi- 
bly so ; and if it be, he that begins to have any 
doubt of any of his tenets, which he received 
without examination, ought, as much as he 
can, to put himself wholly into this state of ig- 
norance in reference to that question ; and 
throwing wholly by all his former notions, and 
the opinions of others, examine, with a per- 
fect indifferency, the question in its source ; 
without any inclination to either side, or any 
regard to his or others' unexamined opinions. 
This I own is no easy thing to do ; but I am 
not enquiring the easy way to opinion, but the 
right way to truth ; which they must follow 
who will deal fairly with their own understand- 
ings and their own souls. 



104 OF THE CONDUCT 

§ 36. Question. 

The indifferency that I here propose will 
also enable them to state the question rightj 
which they are in doubt about, without which 
they can never come to a fair and clear de- 
cision of it. 

§ 37. Perseverance, 

Another fruit from this indifferency, and 
the considering things in themselves abstract 
from our own opinions and other men's no- 
tions and discourses on them, will be ? that 
each man will pursue his thoughts in that 
method which will be most agreeable to the 
nature of the thing, and to his apprehension 
of what it suggests to him \ in which he ought 
to proceed with regularity and constancy, un- 
til he come to a well-grounded resolution 
wherein he may acquiesce. If it be objected 
that this will require every man to be a schol- 
ar, and quit all his other business, and betake 
himself wholly to study ; I answer, I propose 
no more to any one than he has time for. 
Some men's state and condition requires no 
great extent of knowledge ; the necessary 
provision for life swallows the greatest part of 
their time. But one man's want of leisure is 
no excuse for the ositancy and ignorance of 
tho»£ w r ho have time to spare ; and every one 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 105 

has enough to get as much knowledge as is 
required and expected of him, and he that 
does not that, is in love with ignorance, and is 
accountable for it. 

§ 38. Presumption. 

The variety of distempers in men's minds is 
as great as of those in their bodies ; some are 
epidemic, few escape them ; and every one 
too, if he would look into himself, would find 
some defect of his particular genius. There is 
scarce any one without some idiosyncrasy that 
he suffers by. This man presumes upon his 
parts, that they will not fail him at time of 
need ; and so thinks it superfluous labour to 
make any provision beforehand. His under- 
standing is to him like Fortunatus's purse, 
which is always to furnish him, without ever 
putting any thing into it before-hand ; and so 
he sits still satisfied, without endeavouring to 
store his understanding with knowledge. It is 
the spontaneous product of the country, and 
what need of labour in tillage ? Such men 
may spread their native riches before the ig- 
norant ; but they were best not come to stress 
and trial with the skilful. We are born ig- 
norant of every thing. The superficies of 
tilings that surround them make impressions 
on the negligent, but nobody penetrates into 
the inside without labour, attention, and indus- 



106 OF THE CONDUCT 

try. Stones and timber grow of themselves^ 
but jet there is no uniform pile with symme- 
try and convenience to lodge in without toil 
and pains. God has made the intellectual 
world harmonious and beautiful without us ; 
but it will never come into our heads all at 
once ; we must bring it home peice-meal, and 
there set it up by our own industry, or else 
we shall have nothing but darkness and a 
chaos within, whatever order and light there 
be in things without us. 

§ 39. Despondency. 

On the other side, there are others that de- 
press their own minds, despond at the first 
difficulty, and conclude that the getting an in- 
sight in any of the sciences, or making any 
progress in knowledge farther than serves 
their ordinary buisiness, is above their capa- 
cities. These sit still, because they think 
they have not legs to go as the others I last 
mentioned do, because they think they have 
wings to fly, and can soar on high when they 
please. To these latter one may for answer 
apply the proverb, " Use legs and have legs." 
Nobody knows what strength of parts he lias 
till he has tried them. And of the under- 
standing one may most truly say, that its 
force is greater generally than it thinks, till 
it is put to it. Viresque acquirit eundo. 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 107 

And therefore the proper remedy here is 
but to set the mind to work, and apply the 
thoughts vigorously to the business ; for it 
holds in the struggles of the mind as in those 
of war, " Dnm putant se vincere vicere ;" a 
persuasion that we shall overcome any diffi- 
culties that we meet with in the sciences, sel- 
dom fails to carry us through them. Nobody 
knows the strength of his mind, and the force 
of steady and regular application, till he has 
tried. This is certain, he that sets out upon 
weak legs will not only go farther, but grow 
stronger too, than one who, with a vigorous 
constitution and firm limbs, only sits still. 

Something of kin to this men may observe 
in themselves, when the mind frights itself (as 
it often does) with any thing reflected on in 
gross, and transiently viewed confusedly, and 
at a distance. Things thus offered to the 
mind carry the show of nothing but difficulty 
in them, and are thought to be wrapt up in 
impenetrable obscurity. But the truth is, 
these are nothing but spectres that the under- 
standing raises to itself to flatter its own lazi- 
n- s. It sees nothing distinctly in things re- 
mote, and in a huddle 5 and therefore con- 
cludes too faintly, that there is nothing more 
clear to be discovered in them. It is but to ap- 
proach nearer, and that mist of our own rais- 
ing that enveloped them will remove ; and 
those that in that mist appeared hideous giants 



108 OF THE CONDUCT 

not to be grappled with, will be found to be 
of the ordinary and natural size and shape, 
Things, that in a remote and confused view 
seem very obscure, must be approached by 
gentle a?.id regular steps ; and what is most 
visible, easy, and obvious in them first con- 
sidered. Reduce them into their distinct 
parts ; and then in their due order bring all 
that should be known concerning every one 
of those parts into plain and simple questions ; 
and then what was thought obscure, perplex- 
ed, and too hard for our weak parts, will lay 
itself open to the understanding in a fair view, 
and let the mind into that which before it was 
awed with, and kept at a distance from, as 
wholly mysterious. I appeal to my reader's 
experience, whether this has never happened 
to him, especially when, busy on one thing he 
has occasionally reflected on another. I ask 
him whether he has never thus been scared 
with a sudden opinion of mighty difficulties, 
which yet have vanished, when he has serious- 
ly and methodically applied himself to the 
consideration of this seeming terrible subject; 
and there has been no other matter of aston- 
ishment left, but that he amused himself with 
w discouraging a prospect, of his own raising, 
about a matter which in the handling was 
found to have nothing in it more strange nor 
intricate than several other things which he 
had long since and with ease mastered ? This 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 109 

experience would teach us how to deal with such 
bugbears another time, which should rather 
serve to excite cur vigour than enervate our 
industry. The surest way for a learner in this, 
as in all other cases, is not to advance by jumps 
and large strides ; let that which he sets him- 
self to learn next be indeed the next ; i. e. as 
nearly conjoined with what he knows already 
as is possible ; let it be distinct but not remote 
from it' : let it be new, and what he did not 
know before, that the understanding may ad- 
vance ; but let it be as little at once as may 
be, that its advances may be clear and sure. 
All the ground that it gets this way it will 
hold. This distinct gradual growth in knowl- 
edge is firm and sure ; it carries its own light 
with it in every step of its progression, in 
an easy and orderly train ; than which there 
is nothing of more use to the understanding. 
And though this perhaps may seem a very 
slow and lingering way to knowledge, yet I 
dare confidently affirm, that whoever will try 
it in himself, or any one he will teach, shall find 
the advances greater in this method than 
they would in the same space of time have 
been in any other he could have taken. The 
greatest part of true knowledge lies in a dis- 
tinct perception of things in themselves dis- 
tinct. And some men give more clear light 
and knowledge by the bare distinct stating of a 

L 



110 OF THE CONDUCT 

question, than others by talking of it in gross 
whole hours together. In this, they who so 
state a question do no more but separate and 
disentangle the parts of it one from another, 
and lay them, when so disentangled, in their 
due order. This often, without any more ado, 
resolves the doubt, and shews the mind where 
the truth lies. The agreement or disagree- 
ment of the ideas in question, when they are 
once separated and distinctly considered, is, in 
many cases, presently perceived, and thereby 
clear and lasting knowledge gained ; whereas 
things in gross taken up together, and so lying 
together in confusion, can produce in the mind 
but a confused, which in effect is no knowl- 
edge ; or at least, when it comes to be exam- 
ined and made use of, will prove little better 
than none. I therefore take the liberty to 
repeat here again what I have said elsewhere, 
that in learning any thing as little should be 
proposed to the mind at once as is possible ; 
and, that being understood and fully mastered, 
to proceed to the next adjoining part yet un- 
known, simple, unperplexed proposition be- 
longing to the matter in hand, and tending to 
the clearing what is principally designed. 

§ 40. Analogy 

Analogy is of great use to the mind m many 
cases, especially in natural philosophy • and 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. Ill 

that part of it chiefly which consists in happy 
and successful experiments. But here we 
must take care that we keep ourselves within 
that wherein the analogy consists. For ex- 
ample, the acid oil of vitriol is found to be 
good in such a case, therefore the spirit of ni- 
tre or vinegar may he used in the like case. 
If the good effect of it be owing wholly to the 
acidity of it, the trial may be justified ; but if 
there be something else besides the acidity in 
the oil of vitriol which produces the good we 
desire in the case, we mistake that for analo- 
gy, which is not, and suffer our understacd- 
ing to be misguided by a wrong supposition of 
analogy where there is none 

§ 41. Association. 

Though I have, in the second book of my Es- 
say concerning Human Understanding, treated 
of the association of ideas ; yet having done 
it there historically, as givipg a view of the 
understanding in this as well as its several 
other ways of operating, rather than designing 
there to inquire into the remedies that ought 
to be applied to it ; it will under this latter 
consideration, afford other matter of thought 
to those who have a mind to instruct them- 
selves thoroughly in the right way of con- 
ducting their understandings ; and that the 
rather, because this, if I mistake not, is as 



112 OF THE CONDUCT 

frequent a cause of mistake and error in us as 
perhaps any thing else that can be named, and 
is a disease of the mind as hard to be cured as 
any ; it being a very hard thing to convince 
any one that things are not so, and naturally 
so, as they constantly appear to him. 

By this one easy and unheeded miscarriage 
of the understanding, sandy and loose founda- 
tions become infallible principles, and will not 
suffer themselves to be touched or questioned: 
such unnatural connexions become by custom 
as natural to the mind as sun and light, fire 
and warmth go together, and so seem to carry 
with them as natural an evidence as self-evi- 
dent truths themselves. And where then shall 
one with hopes of success begin the cure ? 
Many men firmly embrace falsehood for truth, 
not only because they never thought otherwise, 
but also because, thus blinded as they have 
been from the beginning, they never could 
think otherwise, at least without a vigour of 
mind able to contest the empire of habit, and 
look into its own principles ; a freedom which 
few men have the notion of in themselves, and 
fewer are allowed the practice of by others ; 
it being the great art andbusiness of the teach- 
ers and guides in most sects to suppress, as much 
as they can, this fundamental duty which every 
man owes himself, and is the first steady step 
towards right and truth in the whole train of 
bis actions and opinions. This would give one 



0± THE UNDERSTANDING. 113 

reason to suspect that such teachers are con- 
scious to themselves of the falsehood or weak- 
ness of the tenets they profess, since they will 
not suffer the grounds whereon they are built 
to be examined : whereas those who seek 
truth only, and desire to own and propagate 
nothing else, freely expose their principles to 
the test, are pleased to have them examined^ 
give men leave to reject them if they can ; 
and if there be any thing weak and unsound 
in them, are willing to have it detected, that 
they themselves as well as others, may not lay 
any stress upon any received proposition be- 
yond what the evidence of its truths will war- 
rant and allow. 

There is, I know, a great fault among all 
sorts of people of principling their children 
and scholars, which at last, when looked into, 
amounts to no more but making them imbibe 
their teacher's notions and tenets by an im 
plicit faith, a>d firmly to adhere to them 
whether true or false. What colours maybe 
given to this, or of what use it may be when 
practised upon the vulgar, destined to labour, 
and given up to the service of their bellies, I 
w r ill not here inquire. But as to the ingenu- 
ous part of mankind, whose condition allows 
them leisure, and letters, and inquiry after 
truth, I can see no other right way of princi- 
ling them but to take heed, as much as may 
be ; that in their tender years ideas that have 



114 OF THE CONDUCT 

no natural cohesion come not to be united in 
their heads ; and that this rule be often incul- 
cated to them to be their-guide in the whole 
course of their lives and studies, viz. that they 
never suffer any ideas to be joined in their un- 
derstandings in any other or stronger combina- 
tion than what their own nature and corres- 
pondence give them, and that they often ex- 
amine those that they find linked together in 
their minds, whether this association of ideas 
be from the visible agreement that is in the 
ideas themselves, or from the habitual and 
prevailing custom of the mind joining them 
thus together in thinking. 

This is for caution against this evil, before it 
be thoroughly rivetted by custom in the under- 
standing ; but he that would cure it when 
habit has established it, must nicely observe 
the very quick and almost imperceptible mo- 
tions cf the mind in its habitual actions. 
What I have said in another place about the 
change of the ideas of sense into those of 
judgment, may be proof of this. Let any one 
not skilled in painting be told, when he sees 
bottles, and tobacco-pipes, and other things so 
painted as they are in some places shown, 
that he does not see protuberances, and you 
will not convince him but by the touch : he will 
not believe that by an instantaneous legerde- 
main of his own thoughts, one idea is substi- 
tuted for another. How frequent instances 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 1 16 

fciay one meet with of this in the arguings of 
the learned, who not seldom, in two ideas 
that they have been accustomed to join in 
their minds, substitute one for the other ; and, 
I am apt to think, often without perceiving it 
themselves ? This, whilst they are under the 
deceit of it, makes them incapable of convic- 
tion, and they applaud themselves as zealous 
champions for truth, when indeed, they are 
contending for error. And the confusion of 
two different ideas, which a customary con- 
nexion of them in their minds hath made to 
them almost one, fills their head with false 
views, and their reasonings with false con- 
sequences. 

§ 42. Fallacies, 

Right understanding consists in the discovery 
and adherence to truth, and that in the per- 
ception of the visible or probable agreement 
or disagreement of ideas, as they are affirmed 
and denied one of another. From whence it 
is evident, that the right use and conduct of 
the understanding, whose business is purely 
truth and nothing else, is, that the mind should 
be kept in a perfect indifferency, not incli- 
ning to either side, any farther than evidence 
settles it by knowledge, or the over-balance of 
probability gives it the turn of assent and be- 
lief ; but yet it is \erv hard to meet with any 



11G OF THE CONDUCT 

discourse wherein one may not pereeivs 
the author not only maintain (for that is 
reasonable and fit) but inclined and biassed 
to one side of the question, with marks of 
a desire that that should be true. If it be 
asked me, how authors who have such a bias 
and lean to it may be discovered? I answer, by 
observing how in their writings or arguings they 
are often led by their inclinations to change 
the ideas of the question, either by changing the 
terms, or by adding and joining others to them, 
whereby the ideas under consideration are so 
varied as to be more serviceable to their pur- 
pose, and to be thereby brought to an easier 
and nearer agreement, or more visible or re- 
moter disagreement one with another. This 
is plain and direct sophistry ; but I am far 
from thinking that wherever it is found it is 
made use of with design to deceive and mis- 
lead the readers. It is visible that men's pre- 
judices and inclinations by this way impose of- 
ten upon themselves ; and their affection for 
truth, under their prepossession in favour of 
one side, is the very thing that leads them 
from it. Inclination suggests and slides into 
their discourse favourable terms, which intro- 
duce favourable ideas ; till at last, by this 
means, that is concluded clear and evident, 
thus dressed up, which taken in its native 
state, by making use of none but the precise 
determined ideas, would find no admittance at 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 117 

all. The putting these glosses on what they 
affirm ; these as they are thought, handsome, 
easy, and graceful explications of what they 
are discoursing on, is so much the character of 
what is called and esteemed writing well, that 
it is very hard to think that authors will ever 
be persuaded to leave what serve so well to 
propagate their opinions, and procure them- 
selves credit in the world, for a more jejune 
and dry way of writing, by keeping to the 
same terms precisely annexed to the same 
ideas ; a sour and blunt stiffness, tolerable in 
mathematicians only, who force their way, and 
make truth prevail by irresistible demonstra- 
tion. 

But yet if authors cannot be prevailed with 
to quit the looser, though more insinuating 
ways of writing : if they will not think fit to 
keep close to truth and instruction by unva- 
ried terms, and plain unsophisticated argu- 
ments ; jet it concerns readers not to be im- 
posed on by fallacies, and the prevailing ways 
of insinuation. To do this, the surest and most 
effectual remedy is to fix in the mind the clear 
and distinct ideas of the question stripped of 
words ; and so likewise in the train of argu- 
mentation, to take up the author's ideas, neg- 
lecting his words, observing how they connect 
or separate those in the question. He that 
does this will be able to cast off all that is su- 
perfluous ; he will see what is pertinent, what 



118 OF THE CONDUCT 

coherent, what is direct to, what slides by the 
question. This will readily show him all the 
foreign ideas in the discourse, and where they 
were brought in ; and though they perhaps 
dazzled the writer, yet he will perceive that 
they give no light nor strength to his reasonings. 
This though it be the shortest and easiest 
way of reading books with profit, and keep- 
ing one's self from being misled by great 
names or plausible discourses ; yet it being 
hard and tedious to those who have not accus- 
tome- 4 themselves to it. it is not to be expected 
that e.ary one (a* those few who really 

pursue truth") should this way guard his under- 
standing from being imposed on by the wilful, 
or at least undesigned sophistry, which creeps 
into most of the books of argument. They, 
that write against their conviction, or that, 
next to them, are resolved to maintain the te- 
nets of a party they are engaged in, cannot 
be supposed to reject any arms that may help 
to defend their cause, and therefore such 
should be read with the greatest caution. 
And they who write for opinions they are sin- 
cerely persuaded of, and believe to be true, 
think they may so far allow themselves to 
indulge their laudable a Tection to truth, as to 
permit their esteem of it to give it the best col- 
ours, and set it off with the best expressions and 
dress they can, thereby to gain it the easi- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 119 

est entrance into the minds of their readers, 
and fix it deepest there. 

One of those being the state of mind we 
may justly suppose most writers to be in, it is 
fit their readers, who apply to them for in- 
struction, should not lay by that caution which 
becomes a sincere pursuit of truth, and should 
make them alway.3 watchful against whatever 
might conceal or misrepresent it. If they have 
not the skill of representing to themselves the 
author's sense by pure ideas separated from 
sounds, and thereby divested of the false lights 
and deceitful ornaments of speech, this yet they 
should do, they should keep the precise ques- 
tion steadily in their minds, carry it along with 
them through the whole discourse, and suffer 
not the least alteration in the terms, either by 
addition, subtraction, or substituting any other. 
This every one can do who has a mind to it; and 
he that has not a mind to it, it is plain, m^kes 
his understanding only the warehouse of other 
men's lumber ; I mean false and unconcluding 
reasonings, rather than a repository of truth 
for his own use ; which will prove substantial, 
and stand hiin instead, when he has occassion 
for it. And whether such an one deals fairly 
by his own mind, and conducts his own under- 
standing right, I leave to his own understand- 
ing to judge 



V20 OF THE CONDUCT 

§ 43. Fundamental Verities. 

The mind of man being very narrow, and so 
slow in making acquaintance with things, and 
taking in new truths, that no one man is ca- 
pable, in a much longer life than ours, to know 
all truths ; it becomes our prudence, in our 
search after knowledge, to employ our thoughts 
about fundamental and material questions, 
carefully avoiding those that are trifling, and 
not suffering ourselves to be diverted from our 
main even purpose, by those that are merely 
incidental. How much of many young men's 
time is thrown away in purely logical inqui- 
ries, I need not mention. This is no better 
than if a man, who was to be a painter, should 
spend all his time in examining the threads of 
the several cloths he is to paint upon, and 
counting the hairs of each pencil and brush he 
intends to use in the laying on of his colours. 
Nay, it is much worse than for a young painter 
to spend his apprenticeship in such useless ni- 
ceties ; for he, at the end of all his pains to no 
purpose, finds that it is not painting, nor any 
help to it, and so is really to no purpose: 
whereas men designed for scholars have often 
their heads so filled and warmed with disputes 
on logical questions, that they take those airy 
useless notions for real and substantial knowl- 
edge, and think their understandings so well 
furnished with science ? that they need not look 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 121 

any farther into the nature of things, or des- 
cend to the mechanical drudgery of experi- 
ment and inquiry. This is so obvious a mis- 
management of the understanding, and that in 
the professed way to knowledge, that it could 
not be passed by ; to which might be joined 
abundance of questions, and the way of hand- 
ling of them in the schools. What faults in par- 
ticular of this kind every man is, or may be 
guilty of, would be infinite to enumerate ; it 
suffices to have shown that superficial and 
slight discoveries and observations that contain 
nothing of moment in themselves, nor serve as 
ernes to lead us into farther knowledge, should 
not be thought worth our searching after. 

There are fundamental truths that lie at the 
bottom, the basis upon which a great many 
others rest, and in which they Lave their con- 
sistency. These are teeming truths, rich in 
store, with which they furnish the mind, and, 
like the lights of heaven, are not only beauti- 
ful and entertaining in themselves, but give 
light and evidence to other things, that without 
them could not be seen or known. Such is 
that admirable discovery of Mr. Newton, that 
all bodies gravitate to one another, which may 
be counted as the basis of natural philoso- 
phy ; which of what use it is to the under- 
standing of the great frame of our solar sys- 
tem, he has to the astonishment of the learn- 
ed world shown ; and how much farther it would 

M 



122 OF THE CONDUCT 

guide us in other things if rightly pursued, 
is not yet kjown. Our Saviour's great rule, 
that " we should love our neighbour as our- 
selves," is such a fundamental truth for the 
regulating human society, that, I think, by 
that alone, one might without difficulty deter- 
mine all the cases and doubts in social morality. 
These and such as these are the truths we 
should endeavour to find out, and store our 
minds with. Which leads me to another thing in 
the conduct of the understanding that is no less 
necessary, viz. 



§ 44. Bottoming. 

To accustom ourselves, in any question propo- 
sed, to examine and find out upon what it bot- 
toms. Most of the difficulties that come in 
our way, when well considered and traced, 
lead us to some proposition, which, known to 
be true, clears the doubt, and gives an easy 
solution of the question ; whilst topical and 
superficial arguments, of which there is store 
to be found on both sides, filling the head with 
variety of thoughts, and the mouth with co- 
pious discourse, serve only to amuse the un- 
derstanding, and entertain company, without 
coming to the bottom of the question, the 
only place of rest and stability for an inquisi- 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 123 

tive mind, whose tendency is only to truth and 
knowledge. 

For example, if it be demanded, whether 
the Grand Seignor can lawfully take what he 
will from any of his people ? This question 
cannot be resolved without coming to a cer- 
tainty, whether all men are naturally equal ; 
for upon that it turns ; and that truth well 
settled in the understanding, and carried in 
the mind through the various debates concer- 
ning the various rights of men in society, will go 
a great way in putting an end to them, and 
showing on which side the truth is. 

§ 45. Transfemng of thoughts. 

There is scarce any thing more for the im- 
provement of knowledge, for the ease of life 5 
and for the dispatch of business, than for a 
man to be able to dispose of his own thoughts ; 
and there is scarce any thing harder in the 
whole conduct of the understanding than to 
get a full mastery over it. The mind, in a 
waking man, has always some object that it 
applies kself to ; which, when we are lazy or 
unconcerned, we can eas>V change, and at 
pleasure transfer our thoughts to another, and 
from thence to a third, which has no relation 
to either of the former. Hence men forward- 
ly conclude, and frequently say, nothing is so 
free as thought, and it were well it were so ; but 



124 OF THE CONDUCT 

the contrary will be found true in several in- 
stances ; and there are many cases wherein 
there is nothing more resty and ungovernable 
than our thoughts : they will not be directed 
what objects to pursue, nor be taken off from 
those they have once fi'xed on ; but run away 
with a man in pursuit of those ideas they have 
in view, let him do what he can. 

I will not here mention again w r hat I have 
above taken notice of, how hard it is to get the 
inind, narrowed by a custom of thirty or forty 
years" standing to a scanty collection of ob- 
vious and common ideas, to enlarge itself to a 
more copious stock, and grow into an acquain- 
tance with those that would afford more abun- 
dant matter of useful contemplation; it is not of 
this I am here speaking. The inconveniency 
I would here represent, and find a remedy for, 
is the difficulty there is sometimes to transfer 
our minds from one subject to another in ca- 
ses where the ideas are equally familiar to us. 

Matters, that are recommended to our 
thoughts by any of our passions, take pos- 
session of our minds with a kind of authority, 
and will not be kept out or dislodged ; but, as 
if the passion that rules were, for the time, the 
sheriff of the place, and came with all the posse, 
the understanding is seized and taken with the 
object it introduces, as if it had a legal right to 
be alone considered there. There is scarce 
any body, I think, of so calm a temper who 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 125 

hath not some time found this tyranny on his 
understanding, and suffered under the inconve- 
nience of it. Who is there almost, whose 
mind, some time or other, love or anger, fear 
or grief, has not so fastened to some clog, that 
it could not turn itself to any other object ? 
I call it a clog, for it hangs upon the mind so 
as to hinder its vigour and activity in the pursuit 
of other contemplations ; and advances itseli 
little or not at all in the knowledge of the thing 
which it so closely hugs and constantly pores 
on. Men thus possessed are sometimes as if 
they were so in the worst sense, and lay under 
the power of an enchantment. They see not 
what passes before their eyes ; hear not the 
audible discourse of the company ; and when 
by any strong application to them they are 
roused a little, they are like men brought to 
themselves from some remote region ; where- 
as in truth they come no farther than their 
secret cabinet within, where they have been 
wholly taken up with the puppet, which is for 
that time appointed for their entertainment. 
The shame that such dumps cause to well-bred 
people, 'rhen it carries them away from the 
company, where they should bear a part in the 
conversation, is a sufficient argument that it is 
a fault in the conduct of our understanding, 
not to have that power over it as to make 
use of it to those purposes, and on those occa- 
sions, wherein we have need of its assistance, 
M 2 



Y26 OF THE CONDUCT 

The mind should be always free and ready to 
turn itself to the variety of objects that occur, 
and allow them as much consideration as shall 
for that time be thought fit. To be engrossed 
so by one object, as not to be prevailed on to 
leave it for another that we judge fitter for 
our contemplation, is to make it of no use to us. 
Did this state of mind remain always so, every 
one would, without scruple, give it the name of 
perfect madness ; and w T hilst it does last, at 
whatever intervals it returns, such a rotation 
of thoughts about the same object no more car- 
ries us forward towards the attainment of 
knowledge, than getting upon a mill horse 
whilst he jogs on in his circular track would 
carry a man a journey. 

I grant something must be allowed to legiti- 
mate passions, and to natural inclinations. 
Every man, besides occasional affections, has 
beloved studies, and those the mind will more 
closely stick to ; but yet it is best that it should 
be always at liberty, and under the free disposal 
of the man, and to act how and upon what he 
directs. This we should endeavour to obtain, 
unless we would be content with such Jt flaw in 
our understanding, that sometimes we should 
be as it were without it ; for it is very little 
better than so in cases where we cannot make 
use of it to those purposes we would, a^d 
which stand in present need of it. 

But before fit remedies can be thought on 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING 12? 

for this disease, we must know the several 
causes of it, and thereby regulate the cure, if 
we will hope to labour with success. 

One we have already instanced in, whereof 
all men that reflect have so general a knowl- 
edge, and so often an experience in themselves, 
that nobody doubts of it. A prevailing pas- 
sion so pins down our thoughts to the object 
and concern of it, that a man passionately in 
love cannot bring himself to think of his ordi- 
nary affairs, or a kind mother drooping under 
the loss of a child, is not able to bear a part as 
she was wont in the discourse of the company, 
or conversation of her friends. 

But though passion be the most obvious and 
general, yet it is not the only cause that binds 
up the understanding, and confines it for the 
time to one object, from which it will not be 
taken off. 

Besides this, we may often find that the un- 
derstanding, when it has awhile employed it- 
self upon a subject which either chance, or 
some slight accident, offered to it, without the 
interest or recommendation of any passion, 
works itself into a warmth, and by degrees gets 
into a career, wherein, like a bowl down a 
hill, it increases its motion by going, and will 
not be stopped or diverted ; though, when the 
heat is over, it sees all this earnest application 
was about a trifle not worth a thought, and all 
the pains employed about it lost labour. 



>28 OF THE CONDUCT 

There is a third sort, if I mistake not, yet 
lower than this ; it is a sort of childishness, if 
I may so say, of the understanding, wherein, 
during the fit, it plays with and dandles some 
insignificant puppet to no end, nor with any de- 
sign at all, and yet cannot easily be got off 
from it. Thus some trivial sentence, or a 
scrap of poetry, will sometimes get into men's 
heads, and make such a chiming there, that 
there is no stilling of it ; no peace to he ob- 
tained, nor attention to ^ny thing else, but this 
impertinent guest will take up the mind and 
possess the thoughts in spite of all endeavours 
to get rid of it. Whether every one hath ex- 
perimented in themselves this troublesome in- 
trusion of some frisking ideas which thus im- 
portune the understanding, and hinder it from 
being better employed, I know not. But per- 
sons of very good parts, and those more than 
one, I have heard speak and complain of it 
themselves. The reason I have to make this 
doubt, is from what I have known in a case 
something of kin to this, though much odder, 
and that is of a sort of visions that some people 
have lying quiet, but perfectly awake, in the 
dark, or with their eyes shut. It is a great va- 
riety of faces, most commonly very odd ones, 
that appear to them i:i a train one ofter ano- 
ther ; so that having h;\d just the sight of the 
one, it immediately passes away to give place 
to another, that the same instant succeeds, and 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 129 

lias as quick an exit as its leader ; and so they 
march on in a constant succession ; nor can 
any one of them by any endeavour be stopped 
or retained beyond the instant of its appear- 
ance, but is thrust out by its follower, which 
will have its turn. Concerning this fantastical 
phenomenon I have talked with several people, 
whereof some have been perfectly acquainted 
with it, and others have been so wholly stran- 
gers to it, that they could hardly be brought to 
conceive or believe it. I knew a lady of ex- 
cellent parts, who had got past thirty without 
having ever had the least notice of any such 
thing ; she was so great a stranger to it, that 
when she heard me and another talking of it, 
could scarce forbear thinking we bantered her; 
but some time after drinking a large dose of 
dilute tea, (as she was ordered by a physician) 
going to bed, she told us at next meeting, that 
she had now experimented w r hat our discourse 
had much ado to persuade her of. She had 
seen a great variety of faces in a long train, 
succeeding one another, as we had described ; 
they were all strangers and intruders, such as 
she had no acquaintance with before, nor 
sought after then ; and as they came of them- 
selves they went too ; none of feeiii stayed a 
moment, nor could be detained by all the en 
deavours she could use, but went on in their 
solemn procession, just appeared and then van- 
ished This odd phenomenon seems to have 



130 OF THE CONDUCT 

a mechanical cause, and to depend upon the 
matter and motion of the blood or animal 
spirits. 

When the fancy is bound by passion, I 
know no way to set the mind free, and at lib- 
erty to prosecute what thoughts the man would 
make choice of, but to allay the present pas- 
sion, or counterbalance it with another ; which 
is an art to be got by study, and acquaintance 
with the passions. 

Those who find themselves apt to be carried 
away with the spontaneous current of their own 
thoughts, not excited by any passion or inte- 
rest, must be be very wary and careful in all 
the instances of it to stop it, and never hu- 
mour their minds in being thus triflingly busy. 
Men know the value of their coporeal liberty, 
and therefore suffer not willingly fetters and 
chains to be put upon them. To have the 
mind captivated is, for the time, certainly the 
greater evil of the two, and deserves our ut- 
most care and endeavours to preserve the 
freedom of our better part. In this case our 
pains will not be lost ; striving and struggling 
will prevail, if we constantly, on all such oc- 
casions, make use of it. We must never in- 
dulge these trivial attentions of thought ; as 
goon as we find the mind makes itself a busi- 
ness of nothings we should immediately dis- 
turb and check it, introduce new and more se- 
rious considerations > and not leave till we 



OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 13! 

have beaten it off from the pursuit it was 
upon. This, at first, if we have let the con- 
trary practice grow to a haVit, will perhaps be 
difficult ; but constant endeavours will by de- 
grees prevail, and at last make it easy. And 
when a man is pretty well advanced, and can 
command his mind off at pleasure from inci- 
dental and undesigned pursuits, it may not be 
amiss for him to go on farther, and make at- 
tempts upon meditations or greater moment, 
that at the last he may ha^e a full power over 
his own mind, and be so fully master of his 
own thoughts, as to be able to transfer them 
from one subject to another, with the same 
ease that he can lay by any thing he has in his 
hand, and take something else that he has a 
mind to in the room of it. This liberty of 
mind is of great use both in business and study; 
and he that has got it will have no small ad- 
vantage of ease and despatch in all that is the 
chosen and useful employment of his under- 
standing. 

The third and last way which I mentioned 
the mind to be sometimes taken up with, I 
mean the chiming of some particular words or 
sentence in the memory, and, as it were, ma- 
king a noise in the head, and the like, seldom 
happens but when the mind is lazy, or very 
loosely and negligently employed. It were bet- 
ter indeed to be without such impertinent and 
useless repetitions : any obvious idea, when it 



J 32 OF THE CONDUCT &C. 

is roving carelessly at a venture, being 01 
more use, and apter to suggest something 
worth consideration, than the insignificant buzz 
of purely empty sounds. But since the rous- 
ing of the mind, and setting the understanding 
on work with some degrees of vigour, does for 
the most, part presently set it free from these 
idle companions ; it may not be amiss, when- 
ever we find ourselves troubled with them, to 
make use of so profitable a remedy that is al- 
ways at hand. 




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